Asatru Folk Assembly - 7⧸10⧸24 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 105 - Óðinshof Edition

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:01:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:01:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:02:00.000 Thank you.

00:02:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:03:00.000 Greetings, everybody.

00:03:27.900 from Odin's Hof District. I'm Gidea Sheila McNallan. We're waiting for our Altaria Goethe

00:03:34.540 to join us, and I'm sure he will in a bit, but we just want to say we're very excited to be given

00:03:40.120 the first opportunity to represent a Hof District. We are out here west of the Rocky Mountains.

00:03:50.800 It actually includes the Rocky Mountains, but pretty much west of the peaks, the ridge,

00:03:55.500 all the way out to Australia, to Alaska, New Zealand, Alberta, British Columbia,

00:04:03.700 plus everything on the western side of the U.S. and Hawaii.

00:04:07.160 So just know that we handle a very large region, the largest one there is.

00:04:11.960 And we don't have the concentration of people, as you can imagine,

00:04:16.060 that they have in other districts.

00:04:17.360 So our folk builders work very, very hard at what they do.

00:04:23.320 And as I said, I'm Sheila McNallan here in Odenshoff region right here about a little

00:04:30.640 over an hour from Odenshoff itself in California.

00:04:33.640 But I am going to go ahead and have some introductions made with the folk builders who are here and

00:04:39.140 they can kind of tell you a bit who they are and where they live.

00:04:42.820 And we can just start there and see who gets at it in the coming minutes.

00:04:47.800 Let's start over here with Kyle.

00:04:52.440 Hey, everyone. I'm Folk Builder Kyle Reeder. I'm in Idaho. It's great to be on here tonight.

00:05:01.540 I just, yeah, look forward to answering everybody's questions and having fun.

00:05:06.520 Thank you very much. And we're going to go to Tyler, and we'll swing around to where else

00:05:12.300 here you go, because I'm sure he's got things he'll want to say right off the bat. So, Tyler.

00:05:16.460 Hello, how are you doing, everyone? I'm a local child out of Montana,

00:05:21.420 eastern Montana. We're getting ready for the first harvest feast, and we've got a lot going

00:05:24.620 on in our area, so looking forward to answering all those questions.

00:05:28.780 Great. Of course, these are Oathed Folk Builders. We're on here tonight. We also have apprentices, 1.00

00:05:33.740 but we're happy to have some of ours. Unfortunately, not everybody will be on tonight,

00:05:38.220 but we're now going to Ryan Skinner.

00:05:41.660 Ryan, you're muted.

00:06:08.660 Can you all hear me now?

00:06:11.660 Oh, yeah. And I muted myself. Yeah, Ryan, go ahead.

00:06:15.600 I'm having some technical issues. I apologize. I'll be right back.

00:06:23.060 Sierra?

00:06:26.840 Hi, can you guys hear me?

00:06:28.800 Yeah.

00:06:29.420 Perfect. I'm Sierra Chapman. I am a folk builder from Sacramento, California.

00:06:34.040 I am Odinshoff historian, I am a folk builder, and I help go off on the Adopt-A-Highway we have.

00:06:43.760 Excellent. Thank you. So this is who's with us tonight, but we are, of course, honored to have

00:06:50.960 our Alts. Here you go, the Matthew Flavel here as well. Matt, why don't you go ahead and take

00:06:55.460 over at this point? Thank you, Sheila. I'm sorry, guys. I was running a little bit late today.

00:07:00.680 um aubrey is especially needy today for some reason not quite sure what it is

00:07:07.400 but i appreciate you uh taking over and and getting us started um

00:07:12.380 as you all know by now this is a special edition to where we are talking to the people that

00:07:21.740 allow Odenshoff District to function.

00:07:32.840 These are all, well, this is a selection of the oath leadership that we have

00:07:38.460 in that district. For you guys that may not know, and I don't know if this happened at the top of

00:07:45.040 the show, and I apologize if I'm being redundant, Nick, I don't know if you've got the graphic or

00:07:50.100 not, but when you do, if you could show folks graphically what all Odenshoff district entails,

00:07:57.420 because when we talk about it, I don't know if everybody knows. So this is the portions of

00:08:02.420 Odenshoff that are in the United States, and to be fair, that's the vast majority of our Odenshoff

00:08:08.860 district members, but it also includes Western Canada, and this only sort of in the United States.

00:08:17.780 Also in Odenshoff is Alaska and Hawaii, but it also has Western Canada and Australia and New Zealand.

00:08:28.420 So those folks are part of our Odenshoff family as well.

00:08:33.820 As you can see, it's about a third of the country.

00:08:38.280 And when you add in just landmass-wise Alaska, it's probably about half the country.

00:08:42.280 um but it's also a part of the country that's spread out over greater distances than some of

00:08:49.200 the other parts so i think that uh some of that's reflected in the unique challenges of folk building

00:08:56.080 in the district and i'm sure folks will be able to talk to you guys a little bit about that tonight

00:09:00.640 um so yeah folks this show is not just on the hoff it's on the district and what we've got

00:09:08.000 going on and what that looks like and how things are going, how things have gone, and any plans

00:09:12.720 for the future. Starting off, we have, as always, Ronald Blake with his generous donations, $50

00:09:22.480 towards the steeple at Baldershof and $45 to help the folks in South Africa. We appreciate that very

00:09:31.220 much, Ronald. Thank you so much. Also, $100 from Chris Lucotte to pay off Njortsov. So,

00:09:40.180 we're working on paying off Njortsov. I keep kind of pounding the drum, but you guys keep

00:09:44.980 answering the call with amazing generosity. We've made a lot of progress. So, we are...

00:09:52.500 yeah and as of now that figure's old uh so we we a hundred dollars less than is indicated on that

00:10:01.820 figure so for folks that are curious i don't know if this hundred dollars takes us there but we're

00:10:07.420 about 65.9 paid off um and this is one it being the most expensive hoff we've had to date and

00:10:19.520 to us having it for only 23 months now we've paid off a enormous amount of money in that time due

00:10:28.300 to you guys generosity and uh yeah so the faster we get that done so people that may or may not

00:10:36.440 know that is the first step towards us getting our next hoff which will be phrase hoff that's

00:10:42.820 looking like it will be either in eastern ohio or western pennsylvania and uh yeah first thing we

00:10:50.180 gotta check off that list is getting the debt we have to newertoff paid off so we really appreciate

00:10:56.180 you guys generosity on that thank you so much um please if you're hearing this like share and

00:11:03.060 subscribe tell your friends tell your family shout it from the rooftops uh best thing we have is i

00:11:11.780 The most effective tool we have right now outside of the goodwill and blessings of our gods is word of mouth.

00:11:19.600 A lot of avenues are closed to us that would otherwise be open just because of the political climate that we are in at the moment.

00:11:29.580 So we really rely on folks, you know, getting the word out.

00:11:33.880 And so, yeah, please, please share it around with folks that you think would would benefit from it.

00:11:39.000 um other stuff please join me next week so like week and a half from today in jackson county

00:11:51.100 tennessee at siggerheim for sigger bloat the second sigger bloat at siggerheim um 0.97

00:11:59.100 it's going to be fantastic it's going to be amazing it's a 0.99

00:12:02.900 it's an absolutely magical place um it's going to be

00:12:12.120 i don't know the uh the promise of so many dreams are in play there it's going to be

00:12:19.420 quite amazing as the years progress and uh the more the more time we spend there the more time

00:12:29.580 we spend in ritual there the more imbued with spiritual might with holiness the place becomes

00:12:39.120 and it becomes even that much more powerful so we look forward to uh celebrating siger bloat there

00:12:45.900 doing bloat to tear those who are not familiar uh lord tear will have his hof at sigerheim

00:12:54.080 that will be the Hoff that follows Frey's Hoff

00:12:58.320 in our order of getting Hoffs.

00:13:00.360 So we've got a lot of really big things we want to do there.

00:13:03.260 We would love to see you guys there

00:13:04.560 and have you guys be part of this very early stage

00:13:09.140 of developing that amazing property.

00:13:11.580 So if you're interested, please get your tickets.

00:13:13.600 I'd love to see you guys there.

00:13:15.040 If you're a member, get ahold of a folk builder.

00:13:17.480 They'll get you set up.

00:13:18.640 If you are not a member, also get ahold of a folk builder.

00:13:21.640 They'll get you set up.

00:13:22.540 We would love to see you out there.

00:13:24.640 And the following month, we are going to celebrate Freyfaxi at Baldershof, and that's at Baldershof in Murdoch, Minnesota.

00:13:35.700 So if you can make that, we'd love to see you there.

00:13:38.260 I'll be there. My family will be there.

00:13:40.760 We'll be very excited to show off the absolutely beautiful hoff that they put so much work into and celebrate Freyfaxi and get time with our folks.

00:13:52.960 So I'd love to meet you guys there if we can do that.

00:13:56.740 I think that's what we've got at the top of the show.

00:14:01.380 If I'm picking up what Sheila's laying down,

00:14:03.620 she was getting everybody introduced.

00:14:06.940 I think for a couple of you guys

00:14:08.980 is your first time on the program.

00:14:11.620 So I wanna kind of ask some things

00:14:14.280 that we usually ask people on their first time on the show.

00:14:18.880 We got Ryan, he was having the technical difficulties.

00:14:21.820 He looks like he is, I don't know, operating a jet or something because he's got his headgear on.

00:14:28.360 Ryan, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you found, I don't know, how you came to Ausitru and how you found the Ausitru Folk Assembly.

00:14:37.380 Sure. Yeah. So my name is Ryan Skinner.

00:14:40.140 I'm a folk builder out of Northern California, about an hour and a half away from Odentoff.

00:14:45.500 I've been a member of the AFA since 2017.

00:14:49.500 um you know it was uh quite the journey um i found videos of matt and uh and steve mcnallan

00:14:59.460 on youtube kind of drew me into the the folkish uh state of mind and uh brought me home so i've

00:15:06.700 been with you guys loyally since well we definitely definitely appreciate you and it's great to have

00:15:17.900 you and it's I don't it's been nice to uh watch course your life has taken in that uh in that

00:15:25.760 period of time um and you are newly oathed as a uh as a full builder as of almost a month now

00:15:34.100 yeah a month now we're right we're right close we're either side of a month ago so

00:15:41.840 So speaking of that, there's another gentleman who was in front of Odin's Altar with you taking that oath, also a newly oathed folk builder in the Odin's Hoff District.

00:15:56.460 Kyle, tell folks a little bit about yourself.

00:16:00.540 Tell them how you came to Asatru and how you found the Asatru Folk Assembly and your PRs on the big three lifts.

00:16:11.840 well um like i said my name is kyle reader um folk builder here in idaho in the southeast corner

00:16:21.120 i'm pretty close to utah wyoming montana um i came to assad true actually through my wife she

00:16:29.680 was wiccan in high school and i was like well i want to understand what she's doing um and so i

00:16:35.280 kind of just started researching what she was doing we got in with a um druid pagan group here

00:16:39.920 in town and i was like this kind of feels right but not quite so i started researching more of my

00:16:46.480 ancestral um religious beliefs that they would have believed and that's what initially led me to

00:16:52.960 um asatra in and of itself um i found the afa so i joined the afa in 2020 um i followed them online

00:17:02.000 from like 2017 2018 just kind of lurked in the background for a little bit just wasn't ready to

00:17:09.280 to pull that trigger um and then just trying to raise kids in the world we're in now just is what

00:17:13.680 really made me finally pull it and i i'm yeah i don't know why it took me so long because i

00:17:19.120 haven't been happier um but uh i guess pr is a big three list um you want meet prs or gym prs

00:17:26.720 because they're different all right we'll take your word for it gym prs uh so gym prs right now

00:17:34.800 i've got a 750 squat for a double so it's two reps um

00:17:42.400 562 to a one board um to my chest it's 550 and then i've got 600 pound

00:17:55.760 that geared

00:17:56.320 yeah that's all competing in a single pie powerlifting gear um all right no this guy is

00:18:04.880 immensely immensely strong if you guys haven't seen him or seen any of his videos

00:18:10.080 but it's been really really cool to watch yeah i love it it is it is what keeps me going besides

00:18:16.960 the afa all right well we're glad that you found us we're glad that you're here and we're glad that

00:18:22.160 you're uh putting in work folk building for us and then i believe this is your first time

00:18:28.620 on the program as well tyler is that correct

00:18:30.480 no no it's not we were we were on last year right after first rsv that's right tyler's old news so

00:18:39.700 yeah there's tyler he's here to join us i've gotten these twice though so it's a good thing

00:18:45.660 There you go.

00:18:50.400 All right.

00:18:51.380 I want to say kind of one thing about Tyler while he's here and brag on him a little bit.

00:18:57.460 For as long as I have been in the Astro Folk Assembly, or at least as long as I've been attending things, so I don't know.

00:19:06.540 15 years or so um people have been talking about ah we should we should get a bus and then we

00:19:18.180 could bring a whole bunch of members down to midsummer i've heard that dozens of times easily

00:19:26.040 um but there's one guy that said hey we should do that and then two weeks later he's got a bus

00:19:36.520 he's trying to load people up and get it figured and you know a couple weeks after that he shows

00:19:41.480 up with a bus full of people that wouldn't have otherwise been able to make it to midsummer and

00:19:47.560 that's that's tyler so he is a man of follow through also a homesteader again in the groups

00:19:54.040 that we travel in there's a whole lot of people in mom's couch in a urban apartment building

00:20:03.400 that talk a real big game about slapping hogs and raising barns and the homestead life i've seen

00:20:10.040 very little homesteading manifest but tyler's out there doing it making it happen so tyler says he's

00:20:15.880 gonna do something he does it i appreciate that um looking over there in the meantime

00:20:24.600 as if he were not generous enough

00:20:27.000 Ronald Blake has donated $50 towards paying off New York's off.

00:20:33.360 Thank you so much, Ronald.

00:20:34.700 Really, really appreciate it.

00:20:41.640 So I guess a good place to start with, folks, everyone you see on the screen here was at

00:20:49.520 midsummer um just like i guess like i was going over about a month ago so last month everybody

00:20:59.200 was at midsummer if you guys could maybe go around and tell us a little bit about

00:21:05.680 about midsummer with the eye to maybe an audience that's never attended

00:21:11.280 an afa event certainly that's never attended midsummer that's never been to odin's off

00:21:16.320 so for somebody who's coming into this completely fresh wonder what that's like what that might be

00:21:21.280 about what they might experience if they want to join us for midsummer next year sheila

00:21:31.600 sheila you are muted here we go all right folks yeah well i've done many many midsummers going

00:21:40.560 clear back to like 2009 when we began here in california as making it our first our official

00:21:47.520 event of the year had been winter nights prior to that it became mid-summer around 2009

00:21:53.200 but this was the best this was the best overall from my my vantage point for one thing i totally

00:21:59.600 enjoyed from beginning to end it was was um very heartfelt you know we always say we're family well

00:22:06.080 this did feel like family we did not have a lot of guests we didn't have a looky-loos we didn't

00:22:11.520 have anybody like that everybody who came was a member of the afa came to enjoy the hospitality

00:22:18.320 of our hoff and to meet others meet almost all our folk builders were there except ryan harlan

00:22:23.920 who couldn't be on because he couldn't be there because of of work and family obligations but

00:22:29.200 everybody else was there and it was beautiful it was so well prepared by our hof steward

00:22:37.600 daniel odom and his team of fellows who would come in for work weekends

00:22:42.800 and um just everything was prepped so beautifully um sierra did meals for us with the help of

00:22:50.400 mostly um tyler's guys from the pacific northwest were in there and you've seen pictures probably in

00:22:56.400 that video um but it was uh was beautiful it was just we got everything in there that we hoped to

00:23:04.560 the children did a wonderful children's symbol i was busy but i believe it was kyle and sierra who

00:23:10.320 made that happen and it was charming and the parents loved it and the kids did three rounds

00:23:17.360 and there were a lot of mommies that were were toasted because children do that who's your

00:23:22.720 favorite goddess and mommy you know we're working on that but the little toddlers that's who's

00:23:27.500 important in their lives it was was a family event from beginning to end and that is what we always

00:23:33.880 want it to be i always say it feels like a retreat and this one was was a spiritual retreat and we

00:23:40.080 hope that you guys can come out next year i'm gonna let other people add their their comments

00:23:44.660 their their recollections and certainly having the bus there was was a first and it was delightful

00:23:51.200 having so many people from the northwest come so kyle i'm just kind of going in the order that

00:23:58.160 we're on my screen here tell us a little bit about your experience at midsummer and kind of

00:24:03.360 you know from your perspective what i don't know what you enjoyed and what

00:24:09.200 folks might uh might encounter who've never been to an afa event or an event at odinsoff

00:24:15.520 um going to midsummer at run soft was like going home um you're instantly welcome the second walk

00:24:24.080 to the door um you're around people that are just like you think the same way you do um there's

00:24:29.920 little kids running everywhere it is it's the reason why we joined is that community and it is

00:24:34.880 all there every last every last bit of it um there's something to do for everybody there's

00:24:40.400 tons and tons of people to talk to there's i don't know there's games going on there

00:24:45.280 this year there's people out there setting up chess boards playing chess on the in the yard um

00:24:51.920 oh geez there's just there's so much there's presentations that go on

00:24:55.840 um every like i just i can't get over how much it is it's family

00:25:00.480 it's the best family you could ever be around um yeah there's things for your kids like she

00:25:06.000 was saying kids stumble is amazing um there's a kid's play place or a kid's play area like a

00:25:12.320 playhouse and stuff for little ones um i've got three kids that i don't think i think they just

00:25:18.160 ran crazy all three days we were there i just had a blast they're still talking about it asking when

00:25:22.320 do we get to go back awesome well i am certainly glad that you that you felt that way and that was

00:25:30.800 was your experience. It's kind of, it's interesting. And it, I've gone to every midsummer

00:25:41.320 since 2010. 2010 was the first year I went. I went precisely because Sheila made a slideshow

00:25:49.440 of 2009, which I wish I could find. Found the one from 2010. But man, I was kicking myself. I should

00:25:57.460 gone thought about going didn't go and then i saw the slideshow and everything i missed and

00:26:02.900 been going ever since um but when you first go so many of us have that feeling that it's like

00:26:08.740 coming home that um it's instantly a feeling of family and togetherness and it's just such

00:26:14.820 a moving experience but those of us who've done it for a long time there's a little bit of distance

00:26:20.340 between when it's you know when it's brand new and when it's something that we're you know more

00:26:25.540 accustomed to and some of the uh what maybe a new person's experiences is different than how we

00:26:32.500 experience after we've been involved for a long time so it's really great to hear from people that

00:26:37.700 you know maybe this is the first time and they see something a little different uh so i mentioned uh

00:26:43.380 the man with the bus from the northwest before i do though sheila talked about the kitchen

00:26:47.940 and everybody in there working very hard to take care of all us and feed everybody because it's

00:26:54.500 pretty much constant you know as soon as we've done cleaning up for breakfast it's time to start

00:26:58.740 lunch and you know that's the way between each of the meals except for maybe in the middle of the

00:27:04.020 night um that said apprentice folk builder nick gunn of washington could not get that guy to stop

00:27:14.100 helping out this last or uh this last midsummer i there was not a time i really can't think of a

00:27:20.100 time that i saw him not moving something for somebody bringing somebody something doing dishes

00:27:26.660 helping out with the meals helping out with the trash helping out with every possible thing

00:27:31.940 uh nick's over in spokane if you find yourself in northern idaho or in eastern washington

00:27:42.580 you would do yourself well to get in contact with him we'll have contact information and

00:27:46.660 stuff later in the program it's always available on the website i think this is a good time as any

00:27:52.420 to plug ogenshoff.org that's the hoff district specific website it's going to have calendar

00:28:01.540 of events it's also going to have you know all the contacts and people to get a hold of if you

00:28:07.060 find yourself in that area or traveling through that area or whatever your situation might be

00:28:13.220 that's where you want to go. Tyler, can you tell us a little bit about your experience

00:28:18.100 at Midsommar, you know, with an eye towards somebody who hasn't been before?

00:28:23.940 Yeah, absolutely. So the journey was interesting to say the least. It was a 30-hour drive,

00:28:30.740 35-hour walk. I'm sure Nick would have been willing to drive with me, but I was the only

00:28:38.340 one of the experiences that run the larger vehicle so i did it in one shot it was it was

00:28:45.060 quite the journey but what nick did not have in driving skills he made up and everything else i

00:28:50.500 i know you just complimented the guy but i gotta i gotta give him his due he was my right hand that

00:28:55.140 entire time everything would need to be done he was there and just like at the hop i couldn't get

00:29:01.220 him to stop working when we pulled him the gas station this dude's climbing up on the hood to

00:29:04.660 to get the windshield every single time because that's what he does so I got to travel down with 0.97

00:29:11.860 a bunch of really good folk from my area sang songs played stupid highway games the entire way

00:29:18.740 really good experience and we talked about what we thought the Hoff might be like 0.71

00:29:23.980 most everyone on that bus hadn't been there I don't know if I can say that no one on the bus

00:29:30.880 had been to own stuff i'm pretty sure we were close to having an entire bus of first timers

00:29:36.880 and we discussed you know whether it was going to be as real as they said whether it was going

00:29:41.520 to be as big as they said and when we got there the the big takeaway was that it was more real

00:29:48.080 than what they said and everyone talks to the game but i don't think anyone has the skills to

00:29:54.720 capture what odesoph is like there is there's something about it when you get yourself into

00:30:02.240 the main hall 3 a.m and i'm sure sleep deprivation played a little bit into this but i don't i don't

00:30:08.480 want to give it too much credit you get there and this giant mural of odin sits before you

00:30:14.160 you walk up and what you feel is power there's a pulsing to the to the room and i'm not

00:30:20.400 i'm not one to to lean into things without a good deal of skepticism but when you get there

00:30:28.320 all thoughts of skepticism disappear it is the half of the harry on father it is his hall and

00:30:36.080 if you haven't been there you can understand that conceptually but you won't understand it inside

00:30:42.720 and that's just that was just in the first five minutes when you actually get to meet with the

00:30:46.880 people you get to see how it runs you start to understand odin's hop is an organism itself it

00:30:53.120 is a is a combination of hard work with the people that are local it's a combination of

00:31:00.720 the people there the events done the bloats the food the music because i had live music

00:31:07.200 which is not something most events can say it all kind of coalesces into an event that's very

00:31:12.720 memorable my two-year-old has been getting up on a five gallon bucket the homestead you got a lot

00:31:18.400 of those so she drags one out puts it right in the middle of wherever we're trying to do something

00:31:22.880 because she's two and doesn't know any better she climbs up there she starts pontificating to us

00:31:28.880 it starts with either hail the ancestors or hail the gods and then it usually devolves into hail

00:31:35.760 ale in her little sister or hail lamby her little stuffed animal or hail mommy but it's it's a

00:31:41.600 litany she goes through all three hail the gods hail the ancestors and hail whatever's on her

00:31:47.580 mind and she gets down and she's got her little arms up when she does it and if that's not what

00:31:52.580 we don't know in sophomore i don't know what is awesome well thank you for sharing that with us

00:31:59.700 um ryan what uh what do you have to share to add about midsummer this year well i did definitely

00:32:09.420 didn't have the same drive that uh tyler had with his crew um but uh the friday uh leading up to it

00:32:17.480 i drove in from the coast i was spending some time with family out uh near eureka california

00:32:24.080 uh that morning we drove in i dropped my my wife and kids off at home and beeline straight to the

00:32:31.740 off on friday and from the minute i got there people were buzzing and getting things done

00:32:38.480 interacting there was a lot of camaraderie a lot more calm than the other years i've seen

00:32:46.940 a lot more genuineness than other years i've seen every every instance where something needed to

00:32:54.380 happen there was a crew there to to make it happen anyone that asked for help uh got it anybody that

00:33:01.220 uh was looking for help was put to work um everything that could have gone right did

00:33:08.580 um and everything that uh even to the point where we had a um a leadership meeting out front and

00:33:17.140 someone from our our community who had some food issues a food emergency knew that we had a uh a

00:33:25.060 food pantry service available came saw that there was vehicles there and he came and asked for food

00:33:31.940 he said this is a very difficult time for me it's kind of embarrassing but came and uh took took

00:33:38.100 advantage of the the services that we have available even people from our community value

00:33:44.020 and just having that camaraderie all around was was magical so uh going into odenshoff um

00:33:52.740 um the you'll you'll notice first thing is that the the hall is wide open there's a stage off to

00:33:59.740 the left hand side when you walk through the double doors there's um there's tables set up

00:34:05.180 and at the far wall there's a mural toad and everything between your first steps in

00:34:13.660 to odin's mural is nothing but interaction and like people wanting to get to know each other

00:34:23.160 helping each other out and telling life stories and it was it was great every step that you take

00:34:29.860 in every every stride that you make through that hall you can feel the energy you can feel the the

00:34:37.500 presence of the higher powers um everything that we did all the um rituals that we part uh partook

00:34:46.300 in um had a great revenue uh resonance to it and yeah i i it was great i i i fell asleep that night

00:34:57.020 i was gonna pitch my tent but it was already 11 o'clock at night i was like okay i don't want to

00:35:01.820 set this up um in the middle of the night i just uh laid the um laid my mattress uh air mattress

00:35:09.180 out in the back of my my truck bed and slept under the stars and it was perfect weather it's

00:35:13.900 like 70 degrees and it was something something great it was full night's sleep wake up start the

00:35:21.660 next day everything happened again and having that for three days in a row for midsummer was

00:35:28.620 it's great and uh on saturday i i took my oath with my brother kyle over here great guy and uh

00:35:39.900 i i can't help but look forward to the future with the the quality of the people that we have

00:35:48.060 and everything that we have going on it's the the future is pretty bright and that's all i have to

00:35:54.060 All right. And joining us at last, I think after getting settled with some technical stuff, we have got Sierra.

00:36:07.160 um what do you got to say to folks about your experience at midsummer this year and what i've

00:36:16.560 been telling everybody is you know assuming you're talking to an audience of people that may never

00:36:20.740 have been to an afa event or uh so i think like a good way to kind of speak about the power that

00:36:31.720 you feel at the Hoff is you have to understand like that land is very very old I mean obviously

00:36:37.980 the land's been there since the world has been created but in a grand scheme of things that

00:36:43.140 town was founded in 1808 so that's had a lot of history in that time that has happened in that

00:36:49.940 area it was a little mining town right and then the Hoff itself was put up in 1956 as a Grange

00:36:56.640 hall where the community came and they they hosted events they like they've been putting their frith

00:37:01.920 into the building they've been building their bonds at that building so all these years leading

00:37:07.280 up to us getting the hoth there has been there's been bonds being built there that you can feel you

00:37:12.560 can feel the energy there it's always been a place of like welcoming and love so when we inherited

00:37:19.200 the hop when we purchased it and we took it under our our control and we started putting our love

00:37:24.800 and our frith and bringing the power of the gods there it just exemplified everything and

00:37:32.480 i would say like so for those who have never been to the hoth when you drive you're going

00:37:37.440 down highway 20 and you take a left onto marysville road and when you're on marysville road that is

00:37:43.040 the main road that you're on until you hook a left and you go down the port it's probably about a

00:37:48.320 good 20 25 mile stretch and as soon as you hit that there's no service and as you're driving

00:37:54.560 there's this one curve that you hit. And on the left hand side, it's this big, open green pasture.

00:38:01.120 And every single person that I drive up to the Hoff, because I live in Sacramento, so I like to

00:38:05.800 pick people up from the airport. Every single person, the moment we hit that spot, says they

00:38:11.200 can feel some sort of spiritual power charging them. They're like, whoa, like this, this just,

00:38:15.900 I feel so excited. I can't explain it. I just I'm excited to get to the Hoff. It's like we're

00:38:19.780 getting close. And then you get to the Hoff. And the moment you get to the Hoff, there's at least

00:38:26.400 three people right there going, Hey, welcome. How are you doing? Give me a hug. Hi, how are you?

00:38:30.460 Like, as if it's a family reunion, as if I've known you for the past 20 years. And, you know,

00:38:36.120 I've never met probably, I'd say 30 to 40% of the people that come to Midsommars. But the moment

00:38:43.080 they're there, they're family, and I'm giving them hugs, and I'm pulling them in. And I'm like,

00:38:46.500 hey how can i help you what do you need you know um just making it feel like home and every like

00:38:53.060 and as everyone says when you walk in and you step into those halls you know the floors are the

00:38:58.580 original flooring uh one second apologize i have a have a crying baby um but you know those those

00:39:12.420 original floors that are scratched up with years of dancing and and hoth events and and community

00:39:18.420 events you can feel it like they said kind of pulsing through you i will have to come back

00:39:25.940 okay no worries that happens that's why i was i that's a version of uh why i was late

00:39:31.620 to the program today so i can't can't be too picky on it um tyler disappeared also that's fine we'll

00:39:41.140 get to it um something else will certainly take questions from everybody in the audience but in

00:39:48.340 the meantime one thing i'd like folks who are listening to this that may not be you know close

00:39:55.940 to and just in case anybody's not aware odenshoff is in brownsville california that's in yuba county

00:40:03.300 in northern california and kind of the foothills of the sierras um

00:40:12.500 yeah so we've got folks from different places and i suppose the differentist place we have right now

00:40:18.820 on the screen uh kyle tell us a little bit about what we've got going on over in idaho in southern

00:40:28.580 i know um sorry i got a horse i could drive by my house um me personally i've got a moot on the

00:40:39.360 20th um at my home um if anybody any of you guys are interested in coming to that it would be a

00:40:44.820 nice dinner move i'll throw a bunch of food on my smoker a big old good party um you can contact me

00:40:49.540 at my email k reader at runestone.org um in twin falls we have a member that does a weekly run on

00:40:59.140 saturdays out there that i can also be getting in touch with um and then we are working on getting

00:41:06.340 the folk in utah together to start being more active and together had a couple couple of them

00:41:12.260 start to come down to idaho falls and i'm trying to get their community to grow for them too like

00:41:17.380 i've been starting to get the community here to go excellent uh tyler has returned what you drinking

00:41:24.100 tyler well i paid taxes on it so it's not quite shine okay all right um

00:41:37.780 tyler you are in also in a far-flung corner of our district you are in montana and montana has

00:41:45.540 recently really exploded with activity and i'd say the last i don't a year and a half two years

00:41:51.140 maybe at most uh tell folks a little bit about what we've got going on in montana if you would

00:41:58.900 yeah so i think the first thing to understand about montana is the geography it's

00:42:03.940 an hour and a half two hours just to get groceries for for me for for most it's a

00:42:09.300 little less but you're you're looking at anywhere from one to four hours to get anywhere in montana

00:42:14.420 it's spread out not a lot of people we're outnumbered by cows and deer it's a good time

00:42:20.500 but when it comes to getting together as communities you you have to look at it as a

00:42:25.220 state level and montana is a lot bigger than people think it it dwarfs a lot of european

00:42:33.620 countries on its own and it's it's a challenge to to get people together you have people that

00:42:39.780 are up in the far north on the high line where it's it's winter more than it's not you have people

00:42:45.780 down by butte and yellowstone where it's being filled up by out-of-staters and condominiums and

00:42:53.300 they're getting displaced you got people in the east where there's there's planes you got people

00:42:56.900 in the west where there's there's force and all of these people have different ways of doing things

00:43:02.100 and they got to come together and and put on good events and the best part is it works because it's

00:43:09.460 not only is it a geographically distinct location it's a location that is built their ancestors

00:43:18.100 built it they were pioneers they were they were miners they were gold rush enthusiasts they were

00:43:22.420 ex-confederate soldiers to to loggers these are hardy people and so the four-hour drive doesn't

00:43:28.660 bother them in fact the 12-hour drive from spokane to odesoft doesn't bother them either

00:43:33.380 the big thing we're pushing for next year is we're trying to get

00:43:37.540 every three months the entire region together for a smaller event and we're going to be rotating

00:43:42.820 around the map so that not everyone has to drive as far each time and of course we are gearing up

00:43:48.020 for first harvest feasts the big event we do up there every september and that's really the

00:43:54.420 the things going on in the area right now

00:43:58.660 all right and

00:44:06.660 I'm trying to think of how I want to put it to kind of make it.

00:44:13.200 Sheila, can you tell us the story of the AFA presence in Northern California?

00:44:21.300 When did that start? How did it develop? And what does it look like now?

00:44:28.240 That is a, that's quite a story.

00:44:31.460 Why hamlet and haunt a little bit.

00:44:32.860 We actually did a video that Steve and I presented at Midsummer this year that I think was quite fun.

00:44:42.080 Of course, we have so many photos. We pulled as many as we could together to basically show what it was like the very early days when there was really not much out there.

00:44:55.280 There was the Troth, the Ring of Troth, and the Auster Alliance, and Steve was still in very good terms with Alguard Murray.

00:45:03.980 So we knew that that would always be something we could do.

00:45:06.980 What year are we talking?

00:45:08.420 We're talking, this is like 93, 94, in that area.

00:45:14.180 That's kind of where I came into the picture.

00:45:15.960 Steve had already kind of restarted the Rune Stone magazine, but there was no organization that was involved at that point.

00:45:23.820 but he was out there starting to write and part of the problem that he was seeing for the first

00:45:29.800 time is that the unis were making inroads into the focus group and that was actually australian

00:45:36.580 so steve stood up for them and said we've got to do more and he became very vocal and very well

00:45:44.020 known quickly for presenting the focus view and saying we need to make sure that people say this

00:45:51.100 is an ethnic religion it's not for everybody because every group has its own native ways and

00:45:56.940 that's what we're trying to promote go find your native ways your indigenous ancestral ways and

00:46:02.960 anyway that kind of got it launched um steve is doing the runestone we ended up having by good

00:46:11.540 fortune renting a property right in grass valley that was 26 acres and it was ideal it had old

00:46:18.660 apple orchards it had a wonderful patio that we would gather and and we created a kindred because

00:46:27.020 we're talking about this is early 1990s everything had to be done by snail mail there was no no

00:46:33.660 thought of email and it was too expensive to make phone calls so that's not what you did back then

00:46:39.900 everything was snail mail um and we took over the elsie christianson's um odinus fellowship

00:46:46.740 when she went to prison and started doing a lot of the prison outreach and prison communication.

00:46:52.820 So there was a lot of that going on, just developing the smallest little events,

00:46:57.680 you know, six, eight, ten people and starting small.

00:47:01.560 But Steve said, no, we're ready. We're going to do something bigger.

00:47:05.120 And with that, I remember driving day. I remember where we were.

00:47:09.780 And, you know, we used to be the Austria Free Assembly.

00:47:13.160 We're not going to bring that back.

00:47:14.500 And I said, we're always talking about the folk. How about the Elstrew Folk Assembly? So people always say, I said it has a V. No, it was always folk with an F. That's the way I do it. I wasn't into anything German. And that's how the name came about.

00:47:30.820 And we established it with the state of California, got corporation papers, and then went through a couple of grueling years with the IRS trying to get the IRS exemption, which we did in 1997.

00:47:42.880 But 94 to 95, we were out there.

00:47:46.180 Steve was promoting now to Folk Assembly out in all things in Wisconsin and other places we went.

00:47:53.100 And it was great fun.

00:47:54.280 And it grew.

00:47:55.120 It grew.

00:47:55.460 But it was always, you know, at our home, we had some wonderful big events at our home.

00:48:00.540 We had one called Gathering of the Tribes, 1999, and it had over 100 people for about four days.

00:48:10.180 It was, and we had a perfect place for it, but it was a little on the rough side, you know, not like our events nowadays.

00:48:17.060 It was a very motley crew of people who came from all over and didn't have the best behavior, and there was way too much drinking and all that.

00:48:25.220 But that's the way it was in the early days, you know.

00:48:27.400 We were known for that.

00:48:28.780 we didn't have our sights as high as we do now we didn't have the high standards that we do now

00:48:35.420 and yes we had kids around but there were not a lot of kids and um there would be sometimes we

00:48:41.180 would go for a long time with very few children at our events but of course that has all changed

00:48:48.060 with us with afa and actually it was what 20 2011 that we had david james um was at our midsummer it

00:48:59.120 was one of our big midsummers because we started going to a place called camp norga and that became

00:49:04.940 a place it was a kind of the the general gathering of people all over the country uh to come out we

00:49:13.600 had people who would fly out and we had we had matt and we had who came from alaska and brad who

00:49:20.500 came from florida and same with alan and a lot of our leadership came out for that and those were

00:49:26.220 nice those were nice size events and we always had music and we had weddings and all sorts of

00:49:31.180 things like we do now um and it was a beautiful spot but we had david james there and david james

00:49:37.460 was an elderly, scholarly-type fellow. He knew the Gothic language, I believe it was,

00:49:46.980 and had been a professor, but like many, his politics didn't fit in, even back then in the

00:49:53.540 1960s and 70s, and he could not hold a position at a university. But he was known for his beautiful

00:50:01.020 poetry and, as I can tell you, his handwriting and everything. But he did bloat for us that

00:50:05.820 midsummer, the midsummer bloat. And that was the time that he had the ladies take the drinking

00:50:12.280 horn, our big AFA drinking horn, step aside and pour their energy into it, to pour the mead in 0.90

00:50:19.340 and speak words over it. And that is the very first time that was used. And I know that it is

00:50:25.800 now a tradition all around the country, all around the world, and has been taken by people

00:50:31.560 who've been AFA and they leave, well, it's a very powerful ritual that the ladies do. And there's no

00:50:37.660 doubt that we have a lot of children because of it, because we've made it very, you know, we chant

00:50:44.460 basically. We talk over the words and talk over the horn and the meat in the horn, connect with

00:50:49.820 our ancestors, and we've continued to grow. We have beautiful families. We ended up 2015. We had been

00:50:58.120 this time at a camp in Sonoma County at a place called Occidental, and it was owned by the Catholic

00:51:05.460 Church. It was a beautiful camp and a very expensive one. They catered our meals, and we

00:51:11.740 had cool cabins, and we had a midsummer pole we danced around, all that stuff. It was our 20th

00:51:17.760 anniversary, and we had champagne and cake and all sorts of things out of it, but, and this is

00:51:25.480 important because as we were leaving and it was a beautiful event 2015 it was our 20th as i said

00:51:32.760 20th anniversary um steve actually opened up his first box of books of austrian native european

00:51:40.200 spirituality and um but uh one of our go these go these organ odin said hey you guys you know

00:51:49.560 when we leave here maybe we should go check out this property a realtor told me that there's this

00:51:54.840 property that is way across across the state but it might be what we're looking at and looking for

00:52:01.800 and thorkin had never given up the hope that we could find a a property that would be our hoth

00:52:07.960 for years it talked about having a hoffen land fund but um sure enough this we did we had all

00:52:15.000 of our leaders with us that time we left the camp there after writing a check for about

00:52:19.880 ninety five hundred dollars for the cost of a three-day event and we headed across and we're

00:52:26.040 wondering if we'd ever find the ideal spot and sure enough we did what it was was the old grange

00:52:32.520 hall the grange hall that became new grange hall and eventually odenshoff but we arrived there

00:52:42.600 the realtor let us in i think and we walked through this place and it had the stage which

00:52:49.080 i've always been into music and things like that oh my gosh having a stage for music and the big

00:52:55.400 hall and the kitchen had all the appliances had had all the pots and pans that had ever been used

00:53:01.640 there i mean was ready for us and with it we just we went there we walked through the backyard we

00:53:09.720 had mead with us and everybody who was there said yeah this is it this is this is doable the price

00:53:17.000 tag was great for california considering it was acreage it happened to be a little in a little

00:53:22.360 town in a county that none of us knew that we would get to know it very very well and sure

00:53:27.480 enough we we made an oath that day that we would do our best to get it and i had to scramble for

00:53:34.120 a couple months and getting funding for it we did an indiegogo um request for money and raised about

00:53:42.280 $45,000 in I think five weeks, something like that. And we were able to go ahead and sign the

00:53:50.960 papers. And we have a video that I know that Nick has a link to it. We would like to have you just

00:53:58.020 go in and take a look if you haven't seen it. I created the video with the mind that it was going

00:54:03.460 to be our promotion for the Indiegogo campaign. So those pictures that you see there were taken

00:54:09.740 the very first day we ever saw it. And that you can see is our Odenshof, but it's now Odenshof

00:54:15.040 back then. It was called the Grange Hall. And yeah, definitely take a look at the video because

00:54:24.320 it just showed how the opportunity to come on the 20th anniversary. Steve had just been doing a lot

00:54:34.720 ritual work 90 days prior to this and it was just just the pieces fit and again we thank thorgan

00:54:41.840 odin for being the one to encourage us to go look at this because we've never looked back right that

00:54:48.320 was the first half in 2015 we never thought there'd be a second but sure enough and matt

00:54:53.920 became also here go the he kept his heights very high that we would continue getting hoffs

00:54:59.280 and so we have and so we're four we have four and counting plus sigur heim but um it it was a dream

00:55:07.840 realized that there's no doubt that the gods played a role um it is odin's hof and it should

00:55:15.760 be because my husband steve has always been very tied to odin as you probably know and it was i

00:55:24.000 think his decision that this was going to be um the the starting place for us to create hoffs 1.00

00:55:31.840 all around the world so um yeah 2015 was amazing we've we've done events ever since met stepped in 0.90

00:55:40.800 to start running the faith in 2016. we stepped away because it had been a lot of years as you

00:55:48.800 know 20 years plus um doing everything on our own and hey i've got a birthday tomorrow and i'm

00:55:56.800 plenty old and so i needed some time away myself and that is what we did and the afa has thrived

00:56:03.680 ever since and i have to say that we're all so fortunate to have matt at the helm and all of the

00:56:10.000 leadership including the witch and then the godar and all of our folk builders who all understand

00:56:15.920 how leadership works now it has to be a tiered system you can't just have it be egalitarian and

00:56:22.640 democratic type thing we've seen what what happens when groups do that never works and it works

00:56:27.920 because matt has such wonderful management skills and has people with him um it's wonderful that we

00:56:34.320 have odin's hall um and the fact that it ended up being the first half named odin and and um

00:56:41.760 um, I always thought it would be New Grange Hall because that's what I named it. That was meant to

00:56:48.020 be. The Grange told us, you can't use that word Grange. We own it. Like you own New Grange too,

00:56:54.260 or the Grange, whatever. But they said, we've got a trademark. You cannot use,

00:56:58.180 use the word Grange as New Grange. And, uh, sure enough, Matt said, Hey, that's okay. We'll come

00:57:05.480 up with a different plan. And it became Odinsoft as it was meant to be from the beginning. So

00:57:10.200 that's a long story, but it's been many years in the making. And I just want to say parts of it

00:57:17.800 have been the same ever since. People who were around in the early days, they still feel they're

00:57:22.900 with the AFA, but we have grown. And as we've grown, we have not lost the heart and the soul

00:57:29.300 and the spirit of what we began with. It's even there. It's more intense. And we encourage

00:57:35.860 everybody if you're not a member at this point you're just looking in uh really think about that

00:57:42.860 there's nothing that will becomes so much of a family as being in the afa it's what we all need

00:57:49.720 now right this world people are too disconnected and join our hoff uh join one of the other

00:57:56.220 districts and know that you've got people there who will always look out for you and help you

00:58:00.260 and teach you and keep you connected

00:58:02.860 to your gods and ancestors and other good folk.

00:58:06.580 That's my story.

00:58:08.360 All right.

00:58:09.560 Well, since while you were speaking,

00:58:14.680 we are joined by folk builder Ryan Harlan,

00:58:19.220 also in Montana.

00:58:24.700 I think this is your first time on the program.

00:58:27.220 Is that correct, Ryan?

00:58:28.040 yeah that's correct this is my first time victory never sleeps cool well welcome um if you could

00:58:36.200 tell folks a little bit about i don't know a little bit about yourself and how you found

00:58:45.000 alsatru and how you came home to the astro focus assembly well uh currently part of the afa for 10

00:58:53.720 years now originally came to the afa after a long time of soul searching and looking at things

00:59:03.720 my family when they first came to the united states were quakers so part of the society of

00:59:10.760 friends known as quakers one of their big tenants is developing a personal relationship with higher

00:59:17.000 powers and that's always kind of been something that's been big in my family

00:59:21.160 in more recent years great-grandfathers grandfathers and stuff became part of a

00:59:28.440 christian segment which is far more extreme it's what my dad was brought up in and he made the

00:59:35.160 conscious decision to not bring us up in that church i will forever be thankful for that

00:59:41.360 one of the things that i will never forget from my father was giving us the leeway to

00:59:47.560 figure things out for ourselves at the time that i came home i was working as a wildland firefighter

00:59:59.400 i did 20 years in wildland fire a little bit more in emergency services overall

01:00:05.640 still currently involved in that profession the um the big thing that came home to me was

01:00:14.360 when i was in school we studied the greek and roman myths a little bit of the celtic myths and

01:00:22.080 that always struck a bigger truth to me than any of the other things i ever learned going to church

01:00:28.840 with family members or anything like that and i it just stuck in the back of my mind and so

01:00:34.640 eventually i decided to just search it out and see what was going on and whether i was doing

01:00:39.640 something that hadn't been done by anybody else, I was going to do it. And so I started out just

01:00:45.440 practicing by myself in my backyard, my two dogs looking on. And eventually I came across the

01:00:52.180 Alistair Folk Assembly. Studied the website for a little bit. Back then the website was not nearly

01:00:59.260 as phenomenal as it is now, but it definitely got the job done. It drove home points to me that told

01:01:05.580 me I was on the right path. I believe Sheila may be able to correct me on this, but I think

01:01:11.300 our first introduction was at Sam's Hawkbrow in Sacramento. And it was just a casual meetup. I

01:01:19.420 believe it was myself and Steve and you and a few other people who are no longer with us.

01:01:25.140 And then shortly thereafter, I became a member. And my first actual AFA event was a midsummer

01:01:31.220 up on the north coast of California. I was born and raised in California. I am currently in the

01:01:37.880 west central side of Montana, but yeah, gold country, the Sierra Nevadas, you know, it's

01:01:48.020 always been home. I miss it very much, but at the same time, I've landed in a place that

01:01:52.280 is almost identical, so I'm very happy about that, but I do miss being very close to Owenshoff

01:01:59.120 and being able to be out there you know used to be out there a minimum of once a month

01:02:03.920 sometimes more but now we're a few days away so it's definitely bittersweet but at the same time

01:02:11.580 we've built Montana helped build Montana Tyler's been building Montana we've taken a state that had

01:02:18.320 I think maybe one or two members and between the two of us we've driven at home and we're

01:02:24.260 we're building the state up fantastic um i fed your tortoise-in-law today

01:02:32.740 and he is enjoying the heat um yeah ryan's in-laws live uh live here in reno and they've got this

01:02:42.020 massive desert tortoise named elliot and uh i uh it i get the uh

01:02:49.540 get the chore and privilege of going over and taking care of him when Ryan's in-laws are out

01:02:58.120 of town, and he enjoyed his lettuce and his rehydrated pellets that he eats, and he seems

01:03:04.920 like he's doing all right. So while we got you, Ryan, can you tell us a little bit about what

01:03:09.480 you've got going on in your neck of the woods over in Montana as far as what's the AFA up to

01:03:15.900 there i just saw uh looks like you guys had a uh odin look just recently that i got the picture of

01:03:21.340 today yeah so yesterday we went up uh up on top of the continental divide which is where we usually

01:03:29.320 make the trek up to we live literally right below the continental divide we head up there and uh for

01:03:36.620 us it's a special place it's literally the the dividing point of our country in which you know

01:03:42.500 water flow diverts anything that flows on the west side of the divide goes out to the pacific

01:03:47.060 and anything that flows on the east side heads out down towards louisiana or out towards the atlantic

01:03:52.900 so it's a very special place i think and we go up there and we try every ninth try we're not

01:03:58.900 always successful sometimes weather especially during the winter months gets the better of us

01:04:04.180 we try to get up there and do odin bloat every ninth some people are familiar with the odin

01:04:09.780 World Prayer Day. That's one thing that our kindred has made kind of a point to do,

01:04:15.700 is to take part in that on every 9th. We also gave blow to A. Rud Mills yesterday,

01:04:22.500 as it was his day of remembrance. We also were getting together without the other half of our

01:04:29.380 kindred, the founding members. They're out currently due to some health issues with a

01:04:34.900 family member. So part of yesterday was also an asking to air for some blessings and some healing

01:04:43.260 for the mother of one of our other kindred members. Outside of that, you know, we've been

01:04:50.220 doing a lot of stuff, trying to get as much done as possible. Rune studies within the kindred.

01:04:57.500 We've been trying to do some get-togethers. We had a camp out for mid-summer. A lot of the kindred

01:05:01.720 It was not available to head down to Odinshof for midsummer.

01:05:06.580 So we decided to do a camp out just amongst ourselves and opened it up to anybody else

01:05:11.960 that may be available but not yet able to go down to Odinshof.

01:05:17.620 It was fairly successful.

01:05:19.200 It was outside of the weather.

01:05:20.740 It actually turned out really, really well.

01:05:22.940 You had to contend with some really, for what may be strange to a lot of people in other

01:05:28.340 areas of the country, summer up here can be pretty hectic.

01:05:31.720 The weather, especially early in the summer, can be pretty, to use a term, but not trying to be, you know, insensitive to anybody, but weathered up here is pretty bipolar.

01:05:42.400 It can go from freezing cold to heat to windy. I mean, it's across the board.

01:05:48.940 And, you know, it was all that.

01:05:52.660 So those who showed up early ended up having to contend with most of that.

01:05:56.240 Some snow, some hail, lots of wind and rain.

01:05:59.280 but by the next day it had dried itself up and everything worked out just fine the the rest of

01:06:07.120 the month right now we are looking at potentially getting as much as the kindred as we can to help

01:06:13.580 support Tyler Tyler's got a pending meetup coming up here so we're going to try to make down there

01:06:20.400 as as many of us as possible outside of that we got to tie in with Tyler and kind of do some more

01:06:26.900 brainstorming we're up here but you know most of the years up to now has been pretty busy here in

01:06:32.980 the west how far apart are you and tyler by road tyler and i are about from where i'm at about

01:06:43.400 four four and a half hours depending um so he's yeah he's about four hours east of us

01:06:50.320 and uh we've got other folks that are you know fairly close within you know two and a half to

01:06:56.840 three hours to the west as well.

01:06:58.620 We've got Nick Gunn over there in the Washington area,

01:07:02.200 good kindred up there in the panhandle.

01:07:05.580 We're trying to get everybody linked in

01:07:07.240 and trying to support each other as best as we can.

01:07:11.460 Excellent.

01:07:13.400 Rachel, if you're still there, I don't think you are,

01:07:15.420 but you said hi over in the comments.

01:07:17.760 Hi, I will see you soon at Sigur Bloat.

01:07:21.020 And Ian, if you're still around popping in saying hi,

01:07:24.840 hey i'm glad you're watching um and uh yeah he's saying hi from texas so uh sierra has come back

01:07:33.160 after the the screaming baby emergency it looks like she might be feeding said baby

01:07:40.040 said baby but feeding another baby a different baby

01:07:44.840 okay well it's not a baby bjorn's like a whole child i didn't know he was the one

01:07:50.200 screaming earlier that's fine uh yeah little girl crying my son okay well yes um where where i was

01:08:01.480 at um you know there's just a lot of magic in the hall but for midsummer specifically um i've been

01:08:09.480 through four midsummers now cooked for three of them two of them three of them cooked for three

01:08:17.880 of them. And I have to say that this was definitely the smoothest midsummer that we've had. Last year,

01:08:25.180 like I said, last year will always be my favorite midsummer just because of how

01:08:28.680 victorious we were. But I take that as an outlier because that's not a normal midsummer situation.

01:08:35.600 And I hope it's one we never have again. So with that one out, I would say this one was definitely

01:08:40.540 my favorite. I mean, I got to watch two men who I consider brothers take their folk builder oath.

01:08:45.780 was a blubbering mess as I always am during those things. I got to meet Tyler and his boys. Nick

01:08:51.940 Gunn was just a beast in the kitchen and Ryan was by my side anytime I needed anything. He was right

01:08:57.880 there to be found. You know, I had Tyler and Aaron and it was fun because they all have kitchen

01:09:04.320 experience. So we got to run it like a, like a pretend little, pretend little restaurant kitchen

01:09:09.120 and it made things work really well um we got we had a bunch of us uh brought our magic cards and

01:09:15.920 we got to play magic the gathering which is like you know my little nerd plug but it was so fun to

01:09:20.320 be able to do something i enjoy with with my folk and and people who mean a lot to me um

01:09:26.640 and you know the biggest thing for midsummer for me is that weekend is all about i mean that like

01:09:32.560 week is all about sacrifice um you know the days leading up to midsummer i went with sheila

01:09:39.760 we went shopping and i had to drive down to marysville for that which is almost an hour away

01:09:44.400 come back do some mom stuff pick up nick rice drive him to the hop which is you know another

01:09:49.840 hour and a half away drive back home go to sleep wake up in the morning go to work get off work

01:09:54.640 come out to the hof and then just immediately start and then staying up until two three o'clock

01:09:59.760 in the morning to spend time with the night owls make sure they get some frith built and then

01:10:04.140 start prepping for breakfast the next morning me tyler nick and um david we were in the kitchen

01:10:10.540 at two three o'clock in the morning making breakfast for the next day and then go to sleep

01:10:15.760 wake up do it all again the next day don't go to bed till you know four in the morning and then

01:10:19.540 fall asleep ryan was my savior and made breakfast that morning because i was just so exhausted from

01:10:24.580 an entire weekend of fun activities. And, you know, I got to hang out with Kyle while everybody

01:10:30.060 else was inside giving talks. And we ran Children's Sumble, which was so much fun. I love getting the

01:10:35.220 children involved. I love seeing their grasp and their knowledge on, you know, the folk and

01:10:40.420 the lore and the gods and all of that, you know, asking them to hail an ancestor and

01:10:45.800 them trying to really think about what an ancestor is and who they want to hail and

01:10:49.860 hearing them talk about the gods and you know the third round when they're wanting to toast

01:10:54.940 everybody they're all toasting their friends they're like hail my friends or hail the afa

01:10:59.320 or hail my mom and it's just that was like the best part i think it's something newer that we

01:11:05.720 started doing at most events is getting the children involved and i have to say that that is

01:11:09.940 100 without a doubt my favorite part sorry that's her bottle having the kids learn and see their

01:11:17.880 growth and and see them light up with excitement when you when you call out three three of the

01:11:24.240 younger girls it's going to be horn bearer and they get to have that responsibility and

01:11:27.920 they're not expecting it and i called on tyler's or i'm sorry i called on ryan's um middle child

01:11:34.820 his youngest daughter to be a horn bearer for us and she was like super excited but she wasn't

01:11:40.400 expecting it you know and then two other of the girls who come around they were just so happy to

01:11:45.560 a part of something and you could see that we're laying the foundational groundwork for these kids

01:11:50.840 to to to grow and they are our next generation so the fact that we're spending more time you know

01:11:58.120 watering those seeds is just amazing and i i love it it's my favorite part of every event but

01:12:04.040 especially midsummer giving those kids a purpose within the event awesome um a couple few things

01:12:13.320 First, I have been remiss. Apparently, I'm supposed to advertise some merchandise this

01:12:18.460 evening. As you guys know, we're trying to figure out our store and just how we're doing stuff.

01:12:23.940 As always, these pieces of merchandise come with a caveat. Get them while getting's good,

01:12:29.800 because we don't know what we're sticking with or how long we're sticking with it. We're trying

01:12:34.940 some different things out for stuff that we've got to go out of house to get done.

01:12:39.720 so uh we've got this shirt it's lovely it's a classic design uh you could see it on my tank top

01:12:48.680 at the gym the other day but only sorta because the one i have is very old and faded so this one

01:12:56.760 is new and fancy looking nick is this the product that we're selling is this one shirt or do we have

01:13:03.240 some other things well as we have shirts hoodies we have ladies shirts and if you're ripe to brandy

01:13:12.280 there might be stringers i don't know okay so imagine other shirts and stuff where you go to

01:13:19.160 the link to purchase this shirt so i'm ridiculous and i'm not advertising it very well we have fine

01:13:25.480 afa products for you i will tell you this in complete seriousness the shirts are really soft

01:13:31.320 and nice i've been really impressed with a couple of them that i've gotten

01:13:37.320 we've had some janky t-shirts in the past or whatever that are just you know rough or whatever

01:13:42.200 these are really nice shirts they're very comfortable and i enjoy them so far so i do go

01:13:48.040 in and please support us any money that you do for for these is going to a good cause to help us

01:13:53.960 advance our mission and the mission of the icer so appreciate appreciate that and you'll get a cool

01:14:00.760 shirt out of it um or hoodie so one thing that in always impressed uh on the back channels here how

01:14:10.760 we're able to get it sheila was talking about uh finding that altar stone when we found um what

01:14:17.560 would become odin's off and this is us there at that uh that very beginning after doing that that

01:14:25.400 ritual making that promise to try to try to make that into a reality and make that that off and

01:14:32.040 this is you know shortly right right on the tail of midsummer the sunday after midsummer of uh of

01:14:40.600 2015. so there you go it's cool picture uh probably cooler to those of us that were there but um yeah

01:14:51.880 it was really really special absolutely the gods uh smiled upon us with that and uh we've been so

01:15:02.680 very blessed to have that off and from it started everything else um you know sheila talked about

01:15:08.520 you know how they got got one off and you know weren't didn't have plans for the other ones but

01:15:14.280 But, you know, how we've been able to get so many in the past few years, three offs and just.

01:15:24.320 I mean, one of them was purchased in 2022, so three offs in two years was kind of amazing, but that's all facilitated.

01:15:33.160 That first one was the hardest one. It's one of those things, as long as something's out of your grasp, that first person to break that record,

01:15:41.960 that's that's what it takes and then it's that much easier after that and uh you know steve and 0.95

01:15:48.800 sheila and all the work they put in over the years trying to make a hof happen um it takes that it

01:15:56.320 takes forever to break that unbreakable barrier but once you do it makes that so much easier for

01:16:05.080 the rest of us to to come along behind and and uh you know keep moving the ball forward but it was

01:16:12.320 such an accomplishment it's one of those things i remember reading um some of the very first

01:16:18.780 editions of the runestone back in the one i was reading was like 82 or 83 but about yep any day

01:16:27.440 now we're gonna get uh we're gonna get our hoff and we're gonna get our our you know our our at

01:16:32.700 the time free assembly afa land and hoff and it's gonna happen you know any day now we're on it and

01:16:38.220 that's the dream of everyone since like i said since at least the early 80s um i remember when

01:16:46.420 i first got involved in house to true in uh 2001 you know again everyone everywhere was going to

01:16:54.160 have these Hoffs and make stuff happen. And there were some, you know, modest like sheds and

01:17:03.100 outbuildings on some people's property that kind of would serve the purpose of a Hoff. And, you

01:17:09.820 know, it was, I guess, closer to what you'd call a stalli in the old term. It was a worship space

01:17:16.360 and those were really cool, but it's a whole different thing to have something that's a

01:17:20.260 recognizable house of worship that is a real deal Hoff.

01:17:27.480 And it's funny, it's kind of cool now

01:17:31.760 that that may not seem like such a big deal.

01:17:36.400 It's always funny when new people come in,

01:17:38.080 you're like, they don't know how hard it was to get here.

01:17:40.560 They just take it all for granted.

01:17:42.420 But it's also really neat that we've been part

01:17:45.960 of building that to where they can take that for granted.

01:17:50.260 You guys have heard me talk about it a lot on here, but I'm going to keep doing it.

01:17:55.000 One of the most significant moments of my life was watching my daughter play at the Hoth.

01:18:00.140 Like, no, this was the dream.

01:18:02.220 And she's never going to know a world that doesn't have Hoths to our gods in it.

01:18:06.620 And that all started at Odinsoff.

01:18:10.960 So we've got a couple questions.

01:18:12.520 Not very many, guys.

01:18:13.520 Ask your questions.

01:18:14.380 We'd appreciate it.

01:18:15.240 It will help us, I don't know, go in interesting directions.

01:18:19.080 But we want a little bit deeper dive on the bus adventure.

01:18:25.840 King of gas station meets.

01:18:28.360 Who wants to know?

01:18:31.440 All right.

01:18:32.140 So I'm going to do something on the name there for a second.

01:18:34.260 So I was on an AFA trip to Denmark and Germany way back when.

01:18:44.320 We'd done some event stuff up in Denmark.

01:18:47.500 Mark and Sheila was with me and we were in a Citron minivan that I was able to drive for,

01:18:55.660 which was awesome. I got to drive on the Autobahn on that trip. And as soon as we crossed into

01:19:00.620 Germany, we stopped at this gas station and it was awesome. Other people in the car with me did not

01:19:08.460 appreciate my choice of snacks, but there was this, I don't know, something, it was kind of

01:19:13.100 a slim jim but it was in like a bread-like substance it was kind of like a little

01:19:24.620 like a long pig in a blanket situation at the gas station and it was awesome and that was

01:19:30.060 probably my favorite of the gas station meats that i've had so i figured i'd put it out there

01:19:35.180 what's up a kolache i that's a check thing but it's kind of similar kind sprekka um

01:19:48.860 yeah so gas station meets sorry for the divergence

01:19:52.140 uh wants to know what's the story behind the cool bus tyler

01:19:58.860 yeah i'm not sure how far back to go but the short of it is everyone's been talking for a

01:20:03.100 a while about getting a bus going down a bit of summer. Oh, if we had a bus, I could go. If I had

01:20:08.920 a bus, I could go, and then they wouldn't go, and years of that went by, and I got tired of hearing it.

01:20:13.760 So I went out and started looking at buses, and they were all exorbitantly expensive,

01:20:19.060 so we decided to do it anyway, and I found this little 19-year-old who had a bus, didn't know

01:20:27.040 what to do with it, couldn't drive the thing, didn't know how to fix it up, didn't understand

01:20:32.080 any of the the work she was trying to do on it i think she was following some youtube bus

01:20:39.280 life trend and dying over her head so she ended up uh going to sell it and i was able to reach

01:20:47.200 out to her within six hours of it being posted i had uh contacted her within 18 hours we had the

01:20:54.400 bus and financially it was uh apprentice folk builder aaron simbeck and myself that split the

01:21:00.960 bill and then the trip itself down was partially funded by the the authentic order of the little

01:21:07.520 fraternity i'm not going to go into detail on it but the short of it is it's made up of afa members

01:21:13.040 not an afa fraternity so a little auxiliary and with that we were able to put together this this

01:21:20.400 trip and so when we got it it was completely gutted there was no seating there was it was

01:21:27.360 pretty bare bones so what we did was we we grabbed some church pews we had absconded with previous

01:21:32.240 here for the for ferris harvest feast and we took some of the surplus we bolted it in made it all

01:21:37.680 nice uh they're padded so it's it is quite comfortable threw some storage in the back

01:21:43.840 got a pa system hooked up so i even had a little mic it was it's pretty fun we gotta do an impromptu

01:21:49.760 a Q&A to keep myself awake on the tail end.

01:21:53.240 Did

01:21:53.680 all sorts of fun little things on it.

01:21:55.660 So that's kind of the story of the bus. I mean, I can go into

01:21:57.600 more details, but if there's anything

01:21:59.200 a particular chat wants to know.

01:22:02.260 I think between me

01:22:03.780 and Tyler and Ryan Skinner,

01:22:05.680 there's no excuse for people to not come

01:22:07.680 to Midsommar, because I will pick

01:22:09.660 you up, Ryan will pick you up,

01:22:11.480 or you can travel with Tyler, and

01:22:13.560 you can camp at the Hoff, and your meals are paid

01:22:15.560 for by the ticket. So,

01:22:17.460 realistically, the only out-of-pocket

01:22:19.560 expense you have is how you get to california otherwise we'll get you to and from the airport

01:22:24.920 or ryan will pick you up if you meet him at the area and drive down to midsummer with you there's

01:22:29.960 really not an excuse anymore and if i could pick you back off one of the cool things about this

01:22:39.400 this bus is we are leaving from coeur d'alane every year now the cool thing about that is i

01:22:44.360 I got people coming from the West Coast, Washington, Far East, Montana, West or North Dakota.

01:22:49.560 You have people coming up from Oregon, coming up from Utah.

01:22:52.300 They're all converging in one central location.

01:22:54.660 If you can't even manage to get to Coeur d'Alene yourself, someone can get you there to get on the bus.

01:23:00.340 There really is no excuse.

01:23:05.860 That's the thing.

01:23:06.700 I just kind of want to point out all those people talking about, man, if only there was a bus, a bus didn't magically appear. 0.97

01:23:13.040 It took a young Aryan man of ingenuity and stick-to-itiveness to have the desire to make a bus happen and then to have the follow-through and the industrial-ness actually make stuff happen. 0.67

01:23:31.360 And I know that that sounds silly and goes without saying, but I think that sometimes, and this is kind of one of the purposes of this episode, and we'll be doing ones for the other Hoff districts as well, give kind of an idea for folks who are listening if they live in any of these, they're going to live in one of these districts, 1.00

01:23:59.780 whatever district they find themselves in to see that there's stuff going on around and there's

01:24:04.420 people out there and how that and how it happens i think a lot of people reach out and

01:24:13.540 want something very close to them and every day we are one step closer to having something close

01:24:20.100 to everybody so much further than we were before but the way that happens isn't me casting a spell

01:24:27.460 from reno and making it you know pop out of the ground what happens is somebody very much like

01:24:33.620 every single person you see on this screen decided to step up as a party of one or maybe

01:24:41.940 one and their spouse or their girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever the case might be and say hey

01:24:47.300 let's start something hey do you guys want to come meet up at the park hey do you guys want to come

01:24:54.300 over and have dinner. Hey, do you guys want to go get a beer and make something happen?

01:25:00.920 In order for things to happen, it's going to take somebody out there to make it happen.

01:25:05.960 And any of you listening can be the first person to do it wherever you're at. And if not, any of

01:25:11.200 you listening can certainly help that person to make it happen and make it thrive and make it

01:25:15.560 successful. So I'd encourage anybody, if you're listening to this program and you find it

01:25:22.580 interesting if this is something you want to do if you are a heterosexual white person that would 0.54

01:25:28.980 like to build a relationship with your gods the icer come home to the ostrich focus and we check

01:25:35.220 us out runestone.org um we're able to make amazing things happen when we stand together

01:25:42.740 and that's what we'd love to do and we'd love to bring all our folk home so uh yeah oh and

01:25:49.860 i suppose as good a time as any nick if you throw up a link to the uh wonderful slideshow you made

01:25:56.260 of the midsummer event i suppose that picture's worth a thousand words and that's a bunch of

01:26:01.620 pictures so you do the math but this gives you an idea of what it was like um and what you can

01:26:09.700 experience when you come out and join us next year we had 103 people this year it's fantastic um

01:26:19.860 Oh, we've got customer feedback over in the chat. The tall metal thingies are awesome. Apparently,

01:26:29.620 those are super high quality. So we sell tall metal thingies with Hoff logos on them

01:26:34.440 that you can put beverages in. That said, yes, I've learned it is called a tumbler,

01:26:42.780 but they work really well. They're insulated good, and we've got good feedback. Honestly,

01:26:46.840 we've got good feedback on all the products at the store that we're using so it's cool stuff we

01:26:53.200 would appreciate you know any help that way and you guys have been awesome speaking of people

01:26:57.860 being generous and awesome while we've been talking gw farnsworth who has been a frequent

01:27:02.760 contributor on here in recent weeks bought us five coffees that's a $25 donation to the

01:27:08.820 Astro Folk Assembly. If you want to do that, you could put it in one of those tumblers and send us

01:27:17.520 actual coffee, and it would probably be warm when it got here because they're high-quality tumblers.

01:27:22.280 But if you want to figuratively buy us coffee, the links are in the description to this video,

01:27:27.520 and yeah, we appreciate you guys very much. There's a couple of other things. Somebody

01:27:32.140 commented in the chat ryan you guys got wild horses in uh montana and i suppose tyler you

01:27:39.900 might have some insight on montana wild horses as well uh over here in the west side of the state

01:27:47.100 it's a part of no uh unless they're breaking out of somebody's ranch or anything like that

01:27:51.260 we really don't have any wild horses over this way do you have wild horses in your neck of the woods

01:27:58.860 tyler if if you if you're within a couple hours of me they they tend to pop up they're mainly in

01:28:06.300 north dakota element they they like the canyons of the western part of north dakota but if you

01:28:12.540 come into our area our area is the uh the badlands north breaks it sounds way worse than is actually

01:28:19.020 a beautiful place uh if you can survive the winter but that was kind of the idea because we don't

01:28:24.060 really want people that can't survive the winter to come on out because they usually have a lot

01:28:28.220 of notions of needing extra frills so negative 55 was this uh this year's record normally negative

01:28:34.780 40. so it's it's a good place but we do we do get wild horses through the area

01:28:41.500 you want wild horses you come out to reno and give me half an hour i will show you wild horses

01:28:46.060 we've got a ton of wild horses um to the east of us just about anywhere honestly um

01:28:53.020 my wife was here she had no right the name of the neighborhood there's neighborhood kind of

01:28:59.020 on the fringes of town to where it's very common to have wild horses just walking through the street

01:29:03.900 so we got a bunch of them out where i'm at um

01:29:09.660 what else we got going on over here we got somebody talking about how awesome the website

01:29:14.620 is nick you did an amazing job on the website and continue to do so thank you so much for your hard

01:29:19.420 work on that. Matt? Yeah. I'd like to do a little plug for Daughters of Frigg. It is our ladies

01:29:30.380 group at Odenshof. All ladies are invited to take part. We do have a MeWe group. We do First Friday

01:29:37.400 for Frigg, and that's our little video chat we do. This was the brainchild of Olivia Sutherland,

01:29:45.040 who would be on here tonight, but she is with family out in South Carolina, and they're heading

01:29:50.680 back to California in the morning, leaving at 3 a.m. So there's no way for her to be on here,

01:29:55.340 but she's a really lovely lady. Everybody who meets her just appreciates her sweet, wonderful,

01:30:04.000 and gentle ways. She's just amazing. But she also helped us come up with what is our

01:30:10.420 hof flower and our our um our saying our three words that represent our hof each of our hofs

01:30:18.680 were um were tasked to do this by wit and brandy um bassett and we we came up with a rose um when

01:30:29.240 you see the video um that i produced for the promotional video when we first had the grange

01:30:35.640 and we started raising money, you'll see that the rose that is still there was in bloom when we saw

01:30:42.680 it. And so it was natural that in coming up with a flower for Odenshof, that would be the rose.

01:30:48.280 What was really neat is that Olivia did a little bit of digging around and she came up with

01:30:53.720 something called the Sheila Rose in honor of me. And I truly appreciate that. And so we actually

01:30:59.400 planted that at May Day or May was a work weekend, but it was a couple of months back. We have the

01:31:05.160 sheila rose right next to on the other side of the steps from the other large rose but um and i'm

01:31:11.400 sure that nick can come up with that but this is just this shows the t-shirts that we have

01:31:18.600 at our hof um with the rose on the front and on the back are words that we came up with as the

01:31:25.720 women of odin's hof um and what we see is our role when people meet us there we go look at each of

01:31:33.320 those. Odenshof, Thorshof, Baldershof, and Njordshof. Excellent. They're all very similar.

01:31:41.300 This is actually more of a charcoal gray, as you can see. But we came up with the words, which I

01:31:46.000 think exemplifies who we are at Odenshof. Generosity, joy, and resilience. And I really

01:31:54.700 like the idea of resilience because we found that we are very adaptable and we can deal with change

01:32:00.440 on a moment's notice and we have a lot of strength because we work together so well we have great

01:32:07.080 teamwork and we're growing our our folk builder core but we can always use more if you are

01:32:13.660 interested in becoming a folk builder in our district or any of the districts reach out to

01:32:20.120 the godi or gidea who is there for us also nathan erlinson is the head of the the leads of all the

01:32:29.300 folk builders. And if you're interested, you could reach out to him as well, because he'd love to

01:32:35.500 talk to you about it and tell you what's involved. But I think everybody here is doing it. It's a

01:32:43.600 work of love. It is simply who we are and what we do. And we are better for it, for having

01:32:50.880 wonderful, dedicated folk builders like you see here tonight. But we have a very large district,

01:32:56.360 as you saw at the very beginning we could always use a few more folk builders to share the

01:33:01.640 responsibilities but also the joy the joy we get here and um the difference we all make

01:33:09.880 when we can uh reach out to our members and host events and all those things that are

01:33:18.840 part of the the role we play here and we're all happy to be here but again folk builders

01:33:24.120 if this interests you um talk to any of the folk builders find out about their experience and maybe

01:33:29.400 they'd even talk tonight about it and why they chose to become a folk builder because that's

01:33:34.040 pretty important but we welcome you to step up and inquire about it thank you one of the

01:33:43.320 one of the really special things about the afa is uh you know sheila mentioned that olivia can't be

01:33:48.360 here because her and her family are traveling um in the carolinas they met up with other afa members

01:33:56.280 while they were out there and you know seemed to have a great time with that we saw a picture of

01:34:00.120 them going out and having a meal um when you're part of the afa you've got you got family pretty

01:34:05.640 much everywhere you go and if not if you're willing to drive an hour here or there you do

01:34:11.080 and that's if you need something if there's an emergency but it's also if you're just traveling

01:34:16.120 or you're moving to someplace new or whatever the case might be or you have a loved one somewhere

01:34:21.400 that you want somebody to check on or whatever whatever it is it's nice to know that you're

01:34:25.560 never you're never far from family when you're with the afa and that's really a special thing

01:34:31.400 nick is quick with the pictures which is awesome um they're there with uh folk builder tyler buffet

01:34:39.240 and his lovely wife and uh witten daniel young and his wife heather young uh folk builder heather

01:34:46.280 young and uh so olivia's husband brody just stepped up to be an apprentice as well they're

01:34:52.360 over a little bit closer to the bay area i wanted to kind of give people an idea of the spread of

01:34:58.760 where we have folk builders in the district um earlier tyler mentioned aaron simbeck and he is in

01:35:06.360 Puget Sound area, Washington. We've got also stepped up the Hoff Steward that Sheila talked

01:35:16.200 so much about who's done such a great job of beautifying and taking care of Odenshoff.

01:35:21.740 Dan Odom, he lives very close in the Brownsville area there. He has just stepped up to be an

01:35:28.240 Apprentice Folk Builder. And we also have Lou Nickerson down in the Tucson area of Arizona.

01:35:38.880 So we've got a couple of folks that are not able to be here, but we do have coverage in those areas.

01:35:45.400 And Nick is amazing. Look, he is a wizard. That was the screen I was looking on to like poke

01:35:53.300 around and tell you who we had where uh but nick was able to pop that up nick you're awesome thank

01:35:59.220 you um is that we need a nevada folk builder a utah folk builder a colorado folk builder

01:36:09.140 new mexico folk builder in a wyoming and organ i mean that's just what it shows

01:36:14.660 in alaska and hawaii and we need one in australia and new zealand we need one in

01:36:20.980 various parts of all of those places there's plenty of wide open space you can see on that

01:36:25.860 map that doesn't have a folk builder in it you could be in those spots and you see little spots

01:36:30.660 where people are overlapped you can overlap as well many hands make light work um and so that's

01:36:39.060 kind of a thing sheila led into and i think it's a good idea if we can go around um kyle can you

01:36:44.740 tell little folks a little bit about your experience as a as a folk builder and what

01:36:50.020 kind of led you to folk building and how's that been so folk building has been amazing like i

01:36:57.620 say all the time it honestly changed my life um made me a lot more patient man a lot more

01:37:01.780 understanding and caring person um but it was mid-summer 2022 i was outside smoking with uh

01:37:10.580 went in brandy facet and we were just kind of talking i was like i think i might try folk

01:37:14.660 building one day she's like well why not just do it now so i was like hey i will and went and

01:37:19.780 talked to you matt and went talk to sheila got right on it that day and i don't know why i waited

01:37:26.100 so long for real like it's been one of the best experiences of my life awesome i'm glad to hear it

01:37:32.580 ryan could you tell us a little bit about your experience as a folk builder and kind of

01:37:37.540 what brought you to that uh yeah so uh i've been a member for a long time uh when i first joined

01:37:45.460 the afa i lived in alaska i moved down in 2021 due to a health uh issue and the process of um

01:37:57.220 moving and uh getting my family re-established to put us really close to the hof is actually

01:38:04.420 where i grew up and so i got to go to more events i got to see the people and interact more um uh

01:38:12.580 instead of being far away in the online space and it really um changed my life for the better i've

01:38:21.060 lost about 120 pounds uh since being down here i have uh gotten healthier in every metric and

01:38:31.700 And all those things culminated from having a good support structure that was in place from the AFA and a moral foundation, a moral pillar that I really looked up to.

01:38:45.880 And when I got to a point where I was in good health and good financial standing, I wanted to give back to all the help, all the commitment, all the camaraderie and the frith that was given by the AFA and our members.

01:39:05.920 And so in, I believe it was March, I asked Olivia Sutherland, Sheila McNellan, and Sierra, what's the process of becoming a folk builder?

01:39:21.240 and from there they threw me right into the fire i got to contacting uh members learning the ropes

01:39:30.820 and it it really opened my eyes to what it takes to keep this this rolling and it was it was

01:39:40.280 awe-inspiring for all the the work that goes into it the people that are committed to doing and at

01:39:46.560 at the time i believe we only had four folk builders five folk builders now i believe we're 1.00

01:39:51.760 close to eight or nine um the it really brought it to my attention that a the afa really needed

01:40:02.560 help for the the odenshof district and b the help the the people we currently have are such good

01:40:09.040 mentors that it was it was a no-brainer it was it was something that i've didn't know that i needed

01:40:17.760 but when i got into it it became instantly a part of my life i talked to my wife's like hey do you

01:40:24.180 want do you want to do this full time like i was an apprentice um during midsummer i took my oath

01:40:31.460 and when i spoke with my wife said i want to continue doing this for the rest of my life

01:40:36.880 and she she totally agreed the the amount of effort we put in and the the camaraderie we

01:40:45.260 build is is amazing and so uh that being said if you are uh in in states that that aren't near a

01:40:55.420 if you're if you're not in a place where they they hold moots contact a folk builder and see

01:41:04.200 if you can uh make a moot for yourself uh hold a moot for local people that are nearby and when

01:41:12.280 you build that that small community when you build the um the infrastructure for meeting people and

01:41:21.640 seeing what we're all about it really turns your perspective and it it helps all together in my

01:41:28.600 opinion and so yeah that's my two cents all right uh sierra what is i don't know what brought you

01:41:37.240 to folk building and how's that been what do you what do you have to say about your folk building

01:41:41.800 experience yeah so i have been a folk builder for four years i think yeah four years um

01:41:50.920 Um, sorry, my son put on my, my, uh, noise canceling headphones, so he can't hear me.

01:41:58.120 Um, so I've been a footballer for about four years.

01:42:00.760 I joined the AFA February of 2020, 2021.

01:42:06.200 So it's been three years.

01:42:07.020 Um, I joined February, 2021 and by May 21, I have become an apprentice folk builder.

01:42:14.220 I had decided that this is what I want to do.

01:42:16.300 I want everybody to feel like, I want to help people feel what I feel when I go to the

01:42:20.540 when I first stepped foot into the Hoff it was like I was home and I know when I am home

01:42:27.200 hold on one second when I am home I I have a responsibility right in my house I have

01:42:34.060 responsibilities and so since the Hoff feels like my home I need to take on some responsibility here

01:42:38.660 it has been absolutely life-changing I honestly think that if I wouldn't have become a folk

01:42:46.300 builder i don't know what i would do with myself it has become a part of my everyday life it's i

01:42:51.720 mean people people say that it's hard work and it is like i'm not going to sugarcoat it and say that

01:42:56.560 it's like the easiest thing ever but it's it just becomes second nature it becomes a part of

01:43:02.500 everything that i do i'm constantly checking my emails i'm constantly messaging the folk like

01:43:07.860 you know i have an iphone and i'm and i'm a gen z kid right so i doom scroll all day so instead of

01:43:13.340 doom scrolling on Facebook, I'm on MeWe and I'm talking to my folk and I'm knowing what's going

01:43:18.060 on with them. And, you know, for the longest time, Matt, I would go up to Matt and ask him about

01:43:22.600 somebody and he'd say, well, who's that? And I would be able to tell him who they were, where

01:43:26.300 they live, facts about them, you know, like what they were doing. And it was nice. It was nice to

01:43:32.500 know that I could know these things about our folk. Okay, buddy, hold on. It was nice to know

01:43:37.800 that I could know these things about our folk just off the top of my head and build those

01:43:40.380 relationships and so it has been it's taught me discipline it's taught me um you know it's taught

01:43:48.000 me better organizational skills it's taught me patience it's taught me compassion it's taught

01:43:53.120 me understanding like it has taught me so many things that I thought I already did well enough

01:43:58.180 on my own but being a folk builder has fine-tuned those things you know um my life used to be very

01:44:03.180 hectic like I would just kind of wing it take it by the seat of my pants but as a folk builder you

01:44:06.880 can't really do that you have to sit down plan things out you've got meetings here you've got

01:44:10.720 this there moots here moots there and it's just it's brought a lot of structure to my life in a

01:44:16.260 really good way all right um tyler what brought you to folk building and what's been your experience

01:44:24.380 thus far yeah so i got started in folk building due to an area falling apart and it was one of

01:44:34.380 those things when Idaho lost cohesion and they had a kingdred that just kind of crumbled, I was

01:44:41.160 able to step up and drive over once or twice a month, depending on the month, and put it back

01:44:47.960 together. So I saw a need and I filled it. Idaho is now one of the strongest kingdreds in the

01:44:54.160 Northwest. It's the northern basking kingdreds going great. And the really nice thing about

01:45:00.600 boat building is you get to build things and then someone's going to step up and take over

01:45:07.240 so you don't have to worry about it so northern bastion's being handled by nick gun now and so

01:45:13.680 instead of having to drive six hours which is now eight now that i'm with montana every month to

01:45:18.000 make sure it's uh it's it's good nick's got it down and he's building spokane up he's building

01:45:22.320 the uh the areas north of spokane up as well so he's doing a great job up there which allows me

01:45:29.460 focus on other areas so when i first started folk building the district was not as cohesive

01:45:34.900 as it was now it's it's one of those things where a lot of people conceptually understand that going

01:45:41.700 forward things will be better but then when they look backwards they wonder why things weren't as

01:45:47.780 good and there's just this disconnect where it's of course things weren't as good before if you're

01:45:53.540 working on building a better office so this constant path to victory we see we see changes

01:45:58.020 one of the biggest changes in the northwest is now we have enough leadership to cover the area

01:46:03.540 and that means we can start focusing on building the area to work because the reality is eventually

01:46:10.900 that line that marks through all the all the hoff openings is going to lead its way to the northwest

01:46:15.860 so sorry matt i'm building you a district when the time comes i hope so i hope so we've wanted

01:46:22.660 to see that for a long time we'd love to have a hoff up in the northwest

01:46:30.900 and i mean there's a little bit of time that could be that could be brad you soft we'll see

01:46:37.620 ryan what is other ryan what is your uh original ryan what is your your what brought you into folk

01:46:46.740 building and you know what's been your experience folk building so far i think you talked about

01:46:50.580 what we're actually doing already well originally i was tapped on the shoulder by a couple of

01:46:59.220 former folk builders who thought that i had the potential to do the job and i mulled it over

01:47:07.220 and kind of let it go for a bit and then i believe it was a little while longer i was

01:47:12.740 tapped on the shoulder again by our founder and by sheila and told the same thing and said that

01:47:18.980 they saw potential in me and that i could do the job and i mulled it over again and it took me a

01:47:24.500 while just based off of the nature of my career the things that were expected of me in my personal

01:47:31.220 life being dropped off in wilderness areas out of communication for extended periods of time it was

01:47:37.940 one of those things where i didn't want to take on the position initially just based on an inability

01:47:43.780 to be there to be available um but after receiving the encouragement from steven and sheila i i

01:47:51.060 jumped on board and and i did that and at that time we weren't nearly as online and on as many

01:47:57.940 platforms and doing as much as we are now i'm still again involved in very much the same career

01:48:05.220 but i'm no longer in that same capacity i'm no longer dropped off in the wilderness areas i

01:48:10.900 I have connectivity and most of the time I'm not a tech issue unless I am and then I fall back on

01:48:19.700 Nick Rice and Cliff and they get me squared away for all my deficiencies. But I jumped into it

01:48:27.580 basically at the behest of Steve and Sheila and other people who asked me. My experience has been

01:48:35.620 one of ups and downs it's an extremely difficult thing to take on but it's an extremely rewarding

01:48:42.740 thing to take on you see people come you see people go you see the high times and you see the

01:48:47.500 low times but all those high times all the good stuff makes it far more worth it than any of the

01:48:54.160 low times that we experience to see people again you know experience their first events to to see

01:49:00.900 them at the hop to to be worshiping our ancestral gods to be taking part in our ancestral faith

01:49:07.620 amongst their their folk their greater kin that makes it all worth it to see people come home

01:49:15.560 is why we do this um and and it's i wouldn't trade it for anything

01:49:20.880 excellent

01:49:24.160 so we are you're light on the questions so everybody knows it does not have to be an

01:49:42.160 odenshoff district specific question you can ask us any of the rando questions that you ask normally

01:49:47.780 and we've just got a lot of different people to farm them out to or to get perspective on so feel

01:49:53.820 free to do that. Something that I did see from Casey. I don't know if you're still here, Casey.

01:50:09.640 You said you were going to try and attend the Jackson County this year, but you're having

01:50:14.980 health problems and short-term insurance is being a pain um if you are too unwell to attend that's

01:50:25.860 certainly understandable and it's not going anywhere and it'll be there for you when you when

01:50:29.780 you're feeling better um if it's a financial issue or something else nick would be really

01:50:37.540 happy to talk to you on the side and try to get that worked out so you can attend so i'm not sure

01:50:42.260 what's holding you back but we'd love to see in jackson county if you can make it at siggerheim

01:50:50.260 and i saw something just came through so

01:50:56.020 what does it take personally to volunteer for folk building and how would one prepare so

01:51:05.140 So, I'm going to answer the first part, and then I want you guys to kind of think of what you would suggest is how one would prepare for it.

01:51:19.320 So I have seen, I promise this is meant as a compliment, but it starts out negative.

01:51:38.500 so i have seen woefully ill-equipped people who are not at all good with technology who have

01:51:52.180 strange job hours who are in different marginal circumstances in their lives

01:52:01.700 and quite frankly who are not necessarily high functioning individuals

01:52:05.540 but they had a lot of heart and i've seen those people become amazing folk builders

01:52:13.640 i've also seen people with the best of circumstances the most free time they are

01:52:21.020 just a computer whiz on all of that they've got the most engaging personality and a you know

01:52:30.280 million dollar smile and they look like you want them on the poster and they're like

01:52:35.540 they have all the natural talent in the world and they just don't care that much and it doesn't work

01:52:42.680 out so what i would say a person needs to have the most and it depends on where we're all at

01:52:50.620 different places in our in our journey home to wholeness to health and to our relationship with

01:53:01.940 i seer um but certainly the more devout you are in your practice of alsatru the better you will be

01:53:11.700 the more you care about what you are doing and you feel the weight of responsibility

01:53:17.860 to take ownership for the things that you're assigned or the things that you take on and

01:53:23.620 say that you will do having the ability to have the follow through and to care that stuff gets done

01:53:32.500 it's the biggest thing is just and it sounds so simple but this is a volunteer position and so it's

01:53:40.100 not the incentives of it are not as straightforward and it's easy to slip into inaction or assuming

01:53:54.740 somebody else to take care of something but somebody who's self-motivated and feels the

01:53:59.380 responsibility of making things happen and if you want to do something and you're not getting

01:54:05.860 answers you're not you know it's not happening making it happen if you have questions asking

01:54:10.740 the questions if you want to do something figure out how to do it if you don't know how to do

01:54:17.300 something asking because you're going to make damn sure it gets done because you are committed

01:54:22.740 that's what we need is committed people who want to take responsibility and ownership of the duty

01:54:28.820 of being a folk builder that's the biggest thing that i would say you would need to have coming

01:54:34.260 into it now there's a lot that goes into folk building um a lot of it involves daily communication

01:54:42.660 electronically with the other you know other afa leaders about a variety of issues

01:54:49.860 dealing with our membership database dealing with um membership dues and all the things that aren't

01:54:57.940 sexy or fun but are what keeps the lights on and allow us to move forward some of the more you know

01:55:04.580 fun and things you'd see that have to do with it are hosting things and hosting things doesn't

01:55:10.180 mean something grand necessarily if you can fantastic but it can be just meeting up with

01:55:16.420 other members at some place you want to go already and spending an afternoon with them

01:55:21.620 at a park, or at a local bar, or a local restaurant, or going on a hike. It doesn't have to be a big

01:55:27.780 extravagant event. But doing those things and doing them regularly, the regularity and consistency

01:55:33.900 is probably the biggest thing. But if somebody wanted to be a folk builder, how would you suggest

01:55:39.900 they prepare for the position, Sheila? I think that a lot of people do have their heart in doing

01:55:52.220 it, but they find that they're not into time management. They kind of wing it when it comes

01:56:00.040 to scheduling things in their own lives. They know how the routine works, but in folk buildings, 0.94

01:56:06.160 it really takes um being aware of how you're going to schedule your time because we do have deadlines

01:56:12.560 so i would say that's something to really think about how can you begin um keeping track of what

01:56:18.400 you do during the day when you've got free time where you could do something make calls or get

01:56:25.440 online and those kinds of things which are very easy to do when it comes down to it it's it's

01:56:31.120 finding the time to do it and making the time and actually following through so we all have

01:56:36.720 that problem where we intend to do it we don't quite get to it as soon as we want but i think

01:56:43.040 as time has gone on the time management and keeping track just have a notebook and write down

01:56:49.680 you know what you're doing and um keep keep a journal of of once you start folk building of

01:56:56.480 what you're doing who you're reaching out to we also have other ways of doing it internally um in

01:57:02.160 the database and such as that but um i think that really can help someone be successful at folk

01:57:08.480 building is just being aware of how they how they use their own time as it is enough for me someone

01:57:16.080 else all right so kyle what would you suggest someone does to prepare for the position if they

01:57:23.600 want to do uh volunteer to fulfill um first thing i would recommend that somebody is if they're

01:57:32.320 married is talk to their spouse because it is a huge commitment to take um you miss some family

01:57:38.080 time stuff like being on here tonight um my wife and my kids are all downstairs well they're

01:57:42.880 watching this live now but um i'll be on phone calls when we're having movie nights because

01:57:48.240 the member needs my help with something um it's a huge commitment that not just you take on your

01:57:52.240 your family takes on you might do the work but your family is right there with you going through

01:57:55.760 all of it um another thing like sheila said is do great with time management um i sucked at it at

01:58:01.520 first she helped me out with the whole little notebook trick and that has saved my bus so many

01:58:05.160 times i can't even count them and then get used to talking on the phone it's a lot of talking on

01:58:11.240 the phone with people and you can't be scared to pick up a phone and just call somebody and be like

01:58:14.720 hey how's it going how's your day just wanted to talk to you real quick um and then be willing to

01:58:22.880 be on social media and have your face out there not to hide um you have to be willing to be the

01:58:28.260 face of the afa especially if you're in a small state where there isn't a half

01:58:33.080 absolutely i think those are really good things i think the the bit about your family being

01:58:39.840 on board is huge. I've seen that be a big, a huge asset when that's in place, and I've seen that be

01:58:47.680 a huge detriment when it's not. So, it's a really good point. Ryan, new Ryan.

01:58:56.240 All right. So, I'd have to say that the first thing is, you're never going to be perfectly

01:59:03.260 prepared for taking on new responsibilities. If you have that time available, if you have that

01:59:11.340 drive and willingness to volunteer yourself for something greater than yourself, then the time is

01:59:18.140 now. The time to get all that set aside and, you know, put something forth in your life that

01:59:26.240 actually means something is now. In terms of like if you have a family, it does cut into your family

01:59:34.000 time a little bit, but not that much. Let's just take our Odense Hoff tasks into account here. We

01:59:42.800 do about 15 to 20 calls in a month. You can do this split between all the fault folders that

01:59:49.920 are currently here and you have a month period to to get it knocked out uh we have a requirement to

01:59:57.120 to write articles um and it doesn't have to be like a five page article it can be just a

02:00:03.600 a paragraph about something that you accomplished at a moot or something that's also true late

02:00:09.280 related uh make sure you get gothar approval on stuff that that uh deals with the um with

02:00:16.160 the the religious and spiritual aspects of that but it doesn't it's not as daunting as one would

02:00:25.440 suspect it and especially if more people volunteer for it if more people step up

02:00:32.240 it becomes a lot easier like sheila says uh many hands make light work and it is it's very rewarding

02:00:41.440 you get to meet a lot of people you get to see where their walks of life are you get to hold

02:00:47.040 events you and especially if you're in a state where you get to go to a hoff and you get to be

02:00:53.120 a part of the the event planning it's incredibly like rewarding it you you get to see how the

02:01:01.200 sausage is made and it is something that i want to do forever so it don't don't deter yourself

02:01:09.120 it's just i would say it's kind of akin to having a kid and there's no perfect time but if you want

02:01:13.600 it do it so just make sure that you put your heart and soul into it just just like a kid so

02:01:20.800 that's my two cents on that that's the thing i and i'd like to just kind of throw this out there if

02:01:25.920 you're there is a reason that we have an apprenticeship process um when you when you

02:01:35.600 take your oath you're making a commitment to stick it out and to do this long term even when it's

02:01:42.560 difficult but the apprenticeship process is for you to feel it out and you know get an idea whether

02:01:48.080 it is something that you want to spend your life doing um and so that gives you some time to

02:01:58.800 kind of feel that out and it's really easy to talk about it and think about it in theory and

02:02:03.600 And sometimes in practice, it might be different than you think in both ways.

02:02:08.180 You might think that it sounds, you know, really difficult.

02:02:11.060 And then you sign up and you do it and you love it.

02:02:15.140 So that gives that opportunity.

02:02:17.880 So there is that there, you know, everyone here is talking about things to be prepared for and some of the difficulties involved.

02:02:26.240 And I'm glad they are and they should be because, you know, that's what we're talking about is what you would need to do to be prepared for it.

02:02:31.980 But then again, man, that was one of the best things I ever did with my life.

02:02:36.780 And it's why I'm here.

02:02:39.020 So many of us, so many of my very best friends.

02:02:44.260 Yeah, it changed their life being an active part in making this happen and leading the, you know, leading the charge to bring our folk home to our native, our native faith, to our gods, to the Isir.

02:03:00.260 or reforging that relationship after so long,

02:03:04.420 we're still in a time where you have an opportunity

02:03:07.780 to be such a huge part of building that

02:03:10.780 and building that legacy going forward.

02:03:13.580 It's a really special opportunity.

02:03:16.500 There's a lot of gravity to it,

02:03:17.700 but you gotta love it to be good at it.

02:03:20.380 And it's gotta be something you're willing

02:03:22.140 to put your heart into.

02:03:25.340 Old Ryan, what would you say folks should do to prepare?

02:03:30.260 uh first and foremost i would say don't be afraid we have a lot of people out there and i don't and

02:03:38.980 this isn't folk builder specific but we have a lot of people members um and even people on the

02:03:44.100 periphery who very much enjoy what we're doing want to be members but they're afraid they're

02:03:49.060 afraid to join they're afraid to step up um you know whether that be doxing or being public

02:03:55.060 whatever it is but you know be prepared to put your face out there you put your face out there

02:04:00.020 you put your name out there your real name i've never used a pseudonym i've never not used my own

02:04:04.660 picture you are the face of the afa for better or worse you are the tip of the spear you're putting

02:04:12.820 yourself out there and we are building the afa we're building our community so don't be afraid

02:04:19.620 get yourself up whatever kind of resolve you need to to to get into yourself do it if you're going

02:04:28.640 to be a folk builder you have to be all about it you can't use a fake name you can't use a fake

02:04:33.760 persona you got to be you be you you represent you you represent the afa yeah um absolutely and

02:04:47.400 And I think that not reluctance, but the full-throated, like, hey, I'm proud of this, I'm proud of

02:04:55.120 who I am and what I do, putting your face, putting your name behind it, and being comfortable

02:04:59.540 standing behind it is a huge part of it.

02:05:01.780 So that's definitely something to be prepared for.

02:05:05.040 I'd like to also point out that New Ryan bought us five coffees.

02:05:09.300 That's a $25 donation to the AFA.

02:05:11.700 We appreciate that so much.

02:05:13.960 Thank you.

02:05:17.400 Tyler, a couple of things.

02:05:19.720 We have a question in the queue in case they run off.

02:05:24.460 When is the next Freres Harvest Feast?

02:05:27.280 And while you get that also,

02:05:31.060 what would you suggest somebody do to prepare

02:05:33.280 for folk building if they wanted to volunteer that way?

02:05:38.160 Gotcha, so Freres Harvest Feast

02:05:39.740 is gonna be September 20th through the 22nd.

02:05:42.540 Tickets will be on sale soon.

02:05:44.820 It was a great event last year.

02:05:46.820 We had Steve and Sheila MacNallan come on out.

02:05:49.500 We had a lot of locals put a lot of work in

02:05:52.460 getting it ready.

02:05:53.460 And the venue was a little under what it could have been.

02:05:57.940 It was a little underdeveloped

02:05:59.160 from what we had been used to,

02:06:00.220 but it was the first year we had done it on my property.

02:06:02.800 It was year one for the homesteads.

02:06:07.060 So there was a lot that had to go into it.

02:06:09.000 We did most of our event under a tarp

02:06:13.720 because a rainstorm came in, but we were unexpected.

02:06:17.380 september is usually a beautiful month but rain came in and almost washed us away when we didn't

02:06:21.700 have a finished building to to do the event this year we have a roof so it's already going to be

02:06:26.980 better than last year and there's been a lot more changes that that have happened to the property

02:06:32.100 that you just have to come out and see it so hopefully that answers the when you know forgive

02:06:37.860 me for plugging in a little bit more than i could have but it's my baby it's my pet project every

02:06:42.980 year and you guys should come out and see it as far as preparing to be a folk builder

02:06:48.020 the number one thing is developing willpower and i say developing because it is a skill that is

02:06:53.620 developed over time you know i'm gonna take this and run with it so don't forget me write me in

02:07:01.300 if you have to but really cool thing about willpower is it is it is a is a muscle that you

02:07:06.820 you can train it is something that is metrically observable so the amcc the

02:07:13.460 anterior anterior mid cortex of your brain it grows when you do things that you specifically

02:07:18.580 don't want to but think you need to and that's that's the formula for growing willpower doing

02:07:23.460 things you don't want to but things you need to and if you do that that little bit of your brain

02:07:27.220 gets a little bit bigger get a little sharper and you have more willpower for the next time

02:07:31.700 and that's all you do it's strength training just like anything else

02:07:34.740 if you develop that willpower when the task comes around that you don't want to do whether you're

02:07:39.300 not a social media guy or you're bad with tag or you're scared your own shadow let alone talking

02:07:44.320 to group people groups of people that's it that's all you need to do develop willpower and do the

02:07:50.060 thing you don't want to do because i guarantee the rest of it is well worth it there's going to

02:07:54.580 be times folk building that everything's going smoothly it's it's simply checking boxes and

02:08:00.840 taking time and doing something you're passionate about and there's other times they're going to

02:08:03.760 come up where it tests you when you have members come to you and spill their heart out of all things

02:08:09.840 going wrong in their life and they're looking to you to put it back together it's taxing but it's

02:08:14.560 worth it being able to be that guy or that gal for that person makes all the difference in the world

02:08:20.880 the the thing is it always balances we've had times where the region has felt like it's in

02:08:28.920 turmoil or members lives have fallen apart and they they want to take it out on people around

02:08:33.680 let me get a random end going look i get things are hard well let's build it better let's not

02:08:39.140 take out other people and some of the hardest things are are deaths you get attached to people

02:08:45.220 and then people do what they do they die everyone gets old everyone's got got a time to punch out

02:08:51.340 and it's hard to get to know dozens of people really really well and then a few of them

02:08:57.740 disappear here and there and you just got to be good to deal with that we lost a good guy up in

02:09:02.260 our up in our area i talk about him frequently because i do believe his name should live on

02:09:06.020 it's alan wittenberg we were there for his his funeral we we as the afa did his funeral and

02:09:15.860 we were able to do that because we had people local that doesn't happen if you don't have

02:09:20.340 footballers we don't have go theme so you have to be able to have people where you need them

02:09:26.820 and it only happens when you step up and so as much as it is hard doing a wafer of love for

02:09:33.620 someone who knows they're dying scared of dying but faces it bravely you also then get those

02:09:38.980 moments where someone comes up to you and they lean in and they get all excited and go hey hey

02:09:43.060 tyler i think the wife's expecting and i really want you to be there for the name naming ceremony

02:09:49.300 can you show up and you get to come up to you and then after an event like this so this opens i'm

02:09:54.340 I had two different guys take different moments on the way back.

02:09:57.900 Gas stations come up to me and go, you know, I wasn't sure, but I felt it there.

02:10:02.220 It's real.

02:10:02.940 And being there for the it's real moment is worth everything.

02:10:07.560 So all I can say is you are on the fence of boat building.

02:10:12.900 You've already shot yourself in the foot by waiting because those moments are beyond worth it.

02:10:24.340 So that's, I think, a really important thing that Tyler pointed out.

02:10:32.200 Sometimes you just got to jump, you know, sometimes you've got to make that leap and try something that, you know, you should do, but you're not comfortable with.

02:10:41.140 That's how we all grow as people.

02:10:42.540 And, you know, when I think, look back at my life at the times I've done it, there's very few times that I regret it and a whole lot of times that has quite literally made me the man I am today and I wouldn't trade him for anything.

02:10:59.980 Taking the jump into trying something you're not comfortable with that you know you should do, it gives you the opportunity to be, you know, part of where the magic happens.

02:11:11.220 You know, he mentioned it's, it hurts when you're dealing with people who, and you get this as a folk builder, but you get it more so as a go-thee because you're really in on a lot of the counseling.

02:11:25.260 And you can do that if you build friendships, but our go-thar do this a lot.

02:11:28.660 I don't think people realize it because it does take a toll when you're counseling people at their very worst.

02:11:35.160 But here's the thing.

02:11:37.920 All of those things happen.

02:11:40.440 The reason they don't hurt your feelings in your normal life is because you're aloof to them and don't know about them.

02:11:47.420 When you know, yeah, it hurts, but you get a chance to be there and be that somebody and be part of helping somebody who's in a bad spot, have that spot be a little bit brighter and a little bit better.

02:12:01.180 in the exact same way when somebody's celebrating something amazing rather than kind of hearing about

02:12:07.880 it through the grapevine you get to be there and help make it happen and the times that you can be

02:12:12.080 instrumental in making that happen or facilitating you know maybe because of an event you hosted or

02:12:18.940 a call you answered that nobody else did or you know people that you got together you see those

02:12:25.940 people starting a family and you know get married or have a baby or do anything great with their

02:12:32.440 life or you know shoot you see them across the country become a folk builder and do this those

02:12:38.880 are huge things if you're part of bringing someone home to our gods that's that's amazing

02:12:44.160 it's tremendously rewarding and it's not something that you're gonna really feel the way that the

02:12:50.380 rest of us do until you, until you have it happen. But it's a big deal. So another question we've

02:12:57.880 got, what was the best food slash meals served at one of the events at Odin's Hof? Sheila,

02:13:07.060 in your recollection, what is one of your favorite things at an Odin's Hof event?

02:13:14.160 i i don't recall i mean our meals are really phenomenal we always have lots of food we have

02:13:24.700 a wonderful uh member he's been with us for decades now newt and newt will always bring

02:13:29.900 something unique in his crock pot it might be buffalo heart or or ox stew or something like that

02:13:37.840 and uh it's always a novelty and people love seeing what he does and he does it it's all from

02:13:44.240 the heart and we have people like that who you say never mind you don't need to bring something but

02:13:49.040 he always does and he always brings meat and so we've got this you know it really helps build the

02:13:54.720 frith of our our meals by having people contribute we have wonderful meat dishes of course when we

02:14:02.000 but we tend to try to do the cheaper cuts of course because we're serving anywhere between

02:14:09.600 30 adults typically on a monthly event and you know 15 kids to mid-summer which was actually 106

02:14:16.880 people um and so um as much as we'd like to do a lot of meat we do wonderful turkeys i'll say that

02:14:25.760 we do um in november at vc and harry are we always do our thanksgiving at that point i guess

02:14:32.800 that would be one of the best because it's very traditional for people who don't have family to go

02:14:37.440 to we make sure that they have a nice thanksgiving dinner with us ryan can you think of a particularly

02:14:47.040 good thing that you've had at uh well yeah i can uh i'm i'm always gonna plug i uh i bring

02:14:56.380 venison chili um at least once a year so i think that's one of the better ones uh and

02:15:03.780 you didn't produce oh okay all right so um actually yeah we we did a uh a ham uh honey

02:15:12.220 glazed ham uh for for midsummer for one of the meals and a salad i've i've been kind of on a

02:15:19.860 little bit of a diet recently and so i i relied on some of the uh the high protein meals and the

02:15:27.380 the ham that sierra uh nick gunn and uh the others cooked in the in the kitchen was actually really

02:15:34.620 really good so i i'm i would have to say that the best in my memory is the last one so

02:15:40.900 all right so

02:15:43.380 it's hard because eventually stuff runs together somebody and i know i've asked before and i forget

02:15:50.920 everybody's looking for some kind of awesome homemade answer and i may have some of those

02:15:57.040 too but everybody lately is bringing these like buckets of frozen eclairs that are awesome and i

02:16:08.200 love those every time and they're amazing um so yeah those are super good thank you to everybody

02:16:16.320 whoever brings those and i apologize because i know i asked and i forgot the answer um

02:16:21.160 newt stuff's always good but as we do to make sure all of our people are fed i'm always the

02:16:28.720 last one that gets to eat so i don't always get stuff that newt brings but he brings really cool

02:16:33.060 stuff um there may be some left by the time i get there if it's super spicy because he has a

02:16:39.620 tendency to bring some bring the heat in some of them um at midsummer uh a sierra's pasta thing was

02:16:47.940 awesome those were delicious i thought that was like particularly stand out good um crystal made

02:16:57.220 some like uh some really simple like ham and cheese sliders that were just amazing one time

02:17:05.780 and i i think i i literally think i ate 16 of them and they were awesome um

02:17:16.020 yeah we gotta be economical about cuts like we're not serving up ribeyes to everybody but

02:17:21.300 but I've had some really good tri-tip there.

02:17:25.900 The Thanksgiving that Sheila talks about, that's always good.

02:17:29.540 If we can get stuff, especially if it's, you know, off of whenever it is,

02:17:34.820 the Feast of the Islander Yard is earlier in the month,

02:17:37.540 but it's typically a Thanksgiving kind of meal.

02:17:41.680 But when everybody's doing the corned beefs,

02:17:45.380 I've had some really good corned beef there,

02:17:47.840 and, you know, I look forward to that.

02:17:49.220 corned beef's amazing so you know in the spring corn beef's really good uh we had this specifically

02:17:54.980 this last time i was really excited we had some um so yeah lots of good stuff sierra popped on

02:18:00.020 just in time not okay so this is this okay because you produce so much of it i'm not going to

02:18:09.300 disallow stuff that you've made but include something that wasn't from sierra also please go

02:18:16.580 so far was last midsummer I relied heavily on pork because it's cheap and I made some just

02:18:30.360 super good like pork loin that I turned into basically pork chops that was really really

02:18:38.640 good so sweet so tender but I would have to say you know being in the kitchen props to crystal

02:18:46.380 because she went above and beyond for you guys like way more than i would ever be able to do 1.00

02:18:50.780 making homemade spatzel and all this stuff um but i would have to say she made a paprikash dish one

02:18:56.940 time that was so good but it was very labor intensive so i haven't attempted it i don't

02:19:02.300 think i could do it nearly as good as her but her paprikash was amazing i jumped on because

02:19:08.700 i wanted you guys to know i'm here watching you so watch your answers okay all right well

02:19:13.740 appreciate that um if any of you guys the rest of you guys are not as you know ryan you ate

02:19:21.260 there for a long time i suppose you you weren't consultation on this remember anything particularly

02:19:26.700 delicious you ate at odinsoff uh old ryan not new ryan i would say probably the pig that we did in

02:19:34.140 the ground i think that that's a standout meal that we did when we slaughtered a pig and an

02:19:39.820 entire pig in the ground that was a fantastic meal worked out really well excellent

02:19:48.700 um so our next question is

02:19:57.420 and i guess everybody doesn't have to but you know speak up and put your hand up or whatever but did

02:20:04.380 any of the folk builders on ever have any doubts about their ability to be a good folk builder

02:20:10.620 uh either while they were an apprentice or while they were out of course you can just

02:20:19.420 because i'm gonna have to hop off in a second um i get those doubts a lot especially because we have

02:20:25.100 such a strong team of folk builders like in odenshoff district but especially odenshoff

02:20:30.140 specifically, like Olivia Sutherland is such an amazing folk builder and Ryan was an amazing

02:20:37.400 apprentice and I'm sure he's an amazing folk builder now that he's taken his oath, you know, but

02:20:41.460 for those to be my teammates, right, I don't feel like I could ever live up to the potential that

02:20:48.820 they have set forth and so it causes a lot of doubts but, you know, I have to remind myself

02:20:53.700 that we're all great in our own ways. Olivia does things that I can never do and I do things that

02:20:58.580 Olivia probably could do but you know what I mean like we all have our different strengths and I

02:21:03.300 think that's part of why we work so well together is we're all amazing at different things so when

02:21:10.100 I get those doubts I just have to remind myself of where my strengths are and don't compare myself

02:21:14.340 to other people because where Ryan is excelling and I may not be I'm still doing okay I'm still

02:21:19.780 doing good I just you know maybe not as amazing as Ryan at it because that's his strong suit

02:21:24.580 so those doubts definitely come about quite frequently but it's just remembering that

02:21:30.340 you know you've got this you can do it and when it gets hard I've got a great team that I can

02:21:35.120 rely on to help lift me back up. I would say that on the macro I don't really have any doubts about

02:21:50.620 building but on the micro there are times where you don't know what to say to someone you don't

02:21:55.180 know how to go about especially when you're friends with someone you don't know how to go

02:22:00.860 about going up to them and going hey you know that behavior is not going to work they're just course

02:22:06.460 it's it's the little moments like that that didn't provide some level of doubt but i think

02:22:11.660 once you just dive in it sorts itself out pretty easily

02:22:14.460 I would have to say I haven't ran into many situations I haven't been doing it very long but

02:22:24.980 a lot of the times when you're reaching out to people they're some sometimes they're in good

02:22:33.280 situations in their life and a lot of times they're not and being able to just listen and

02:22:38.680 hear their their story and be supportive where where you can but also be willing to direct them

02:22:46.100 in the right direction for uh gothar support uh it it can it can i i've had a lot of moments where

02:22:54.180 i sat on in the chair and like just reflected off the conversation that i just had and was like

02:23:00.280 i'm i'm glad that we're reaching out to these people i'm glad that we're interacting because

02:23:06.280 I don't think they, a lot of people don't have a lot of interaction to, to let these things out or at least get them on the table so they can be fixed. And so I'm not, not in terms of doubt, but in terms of, of a little bit of hardship, it, it, it can be rewarding, but taxing mentally a little bit too.

02:23:29.200 so that's what i got well i think he touched up on something really important there is that people

02:23:34.800 don't have a lot of outlets to to discuss these things and i think the biggest thing that a member

02:23:41.360 could do to get the most out of the experience is show up to events i think it's one of the things

02:23:46.080 that we talk about all the things we offer we we have plenty of chats online we have the academy

02:23:51.680 we have the prison ministry we have all of these wonderful places these hoffs but

02:23:59.360 the meat and potatoes is when you get in person you have these one-on-one conversations you get

02:24:05.440 members meeting members walk away friends and eventually become family and that's that's the

02:24:10.560 core advice that you give any member is getting out in person to events because that's that's where

02:24:18.320 of the magic happens. Absolutely. What else we got? So part of the question, part of my practice

02:24:41.540 is reading every morning with a cup of coffee. I'm reading Eric the Red Saga right now. What

02:24:47.440 is everybody reading right now that's Ousitru related from Scott Free. Sheila, what are you

02:24:54.240 reading currently that's Ousitru related? I am reading and tapping into various

02:25:03.760 versions of the Volsunga saga, Sigurd's story, and I feel I want to integrate that into Sigurdloat,

02:25:14.000 So I'm really focused on it, and I'm going to come up with ways that that can be interspersed with different parts of our celebration that we all celebrate a week and a half out at Odin's Hof.

02:25:30.260 So I've got a beautiful version here that I really like.

02:25:34.800 It's kind of old text, very tiny print, though.

02:25:38.040 It requires using glasses to read that one.

02:25:40.280 but this one is

02:25:42.220 Wolsunga Saga, the story of the

02:25:44.580 Wolsungs and Niblooms

02:25:46.020 and it was done by William Morris

02:25:48.660 who wrote like a thousand

02:25:49.940 line poem about it

02:25:52.340 back in the 1880s I think or 1900

02:25:54.680 very well known

02:25:56.580 for doing that story

02:25:57.980 so I just don't know it well enough

02:26:00.540 and I've been taking notes and doing all that

02:26:02.820 Alright

02:26:04.680 Kyle, what are you reading

02:26:06.680 that's house true related?

02:26:07.900 um right now i'm currently rereading the poetic edot um i've got five different translations at

02:26:14.780 my house and just trying to go through all of them and find differences all right new ryan

02:26:21.100 what do you read uh right now i'm reading um uh faft and small is the the saga i'm i'm reading

02:26:29.420 right now i'm not too far into it so i can't give much in quotes but i'm uh it's definitely

02:26:36.620 interesting uh sigarth and rain it's just definitely one

02:26:44.380 um i am reading elder gods by stephen pollington um i was at an afa event i want to say

02:26:56.220 2012 midsummer that stephen collington came out actually and uh was when he released the book

02:27:12.860 and i had an opportunity to get one then but i was too cheap and i didn't so i got one much

02:27:18.220 later and i am just now getting to read it it's awesome it's really good book i'm reading it

02:27:23.820 slowly because i got a lot of distraction other stuff going on but i'm getting a lot of really

02:27:28.860 really good information that that he points out about um

02:27:33.900 ausentia practice in anglo-saxon angler so it's it's really i don't know it brings up a lot of

02:27:41.580 things that i haven't seen in other sources so that's very nice uh tyler what are you reading

02:27:46.540 that sounds true related yeah so currently i'm going through the bibliography and going through

02:27:52.300 all these sources from uh president kershaw's uh the one i got out in the indio germanic

02:27:59.740 so i've read that and now i'm going through bibliography it's mainly just a bunch of

02:28:04.140 research notes it's getting a little pedantic but it's a worthy effort i hope

02:28:12.380 awesome

02:28:15.980 well appreciate you guys coming on this evening i like this i think it's a good program

02:28:22.300 i think it's good to have you all on here we've got a fantastic team in the odenshoff district

02:28:28.700 and i am very honored to have you guys doing what you do for us so thank you guys i appreciate you

02:28:36.300 carving some time out of your night to be with us i thank everybody in the audience

02:28:40.780 uh for your questions for your being here and listening and uh

02:28:45.100 uh sticking with this show for you know what is this hundred and 105 episodes so far I appreciate

02:28:54.580 that thank you everybody who donated really appreciate you guys generosity um yeah with

02:29:00.880 that we'll do some more of these for the different districts uh witness Fawn and I will be on next

02:29:05.620 week to do the uh lay of hymir and yeah with that i will see you guys next time until then

02:29:18.580 hail the isere hail the folk hail the afa and remember victory never sleeps good night good night

02:29:35.620 Transcription by CastingWords

02:30:05.620 Thank you.

02:30:35.620 Thank you.

02:31:05.620 We'll be right back.

02:31:35.620 Thank you.

02:32:05.620 Transcription by CastingWords

Asatru Folk Assembly - July 11, 2024

7⧸10⧸24 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 105 - Óðinshof Edition

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript